


this is how we live

by yourestuckinmyhead



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, And jasper acts like an actual puppy, Bellamy acts like a grouch but is an actual softy, Bellamy loves flowers, F/F, F/M, Florist Bellamy Blake, M/M, Miller is all knowing, Raven is awesome, Slow Build, Tattoo Artist Clarke, ahhhhh the angst! it is entirely angst and waxing poetic, bukwoski is everywhere, character driven, plot? what plot? is there any plot?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:15:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 27,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourestuckinmyhead/pseuds/yourestuckinmyhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy grows flowers and Clarke tattoos people</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pain is Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by: http://sadxghostxclub.tumblr.com/post/98500585558/i-passed-a-flower-shop-next-to-a-tattoo-shop-and
> 
>  
> 
> Bellamy owns a flower shop and Clarke opens a new tattoo parlor right next door.

 

Bellamy had been having a rough day (week, month, year, life but whats the difference anymore), and the lady on the phone wasn't exactly making his day 'look up'.

 

"Well, I _need_ chrysanthemums. They are the main theme of my party!" While Bellamy pondered why anyone would  _ever_ plan a party around a flower, he once again told her that he didn't, in fact, have any chrysanthemums in stock.

 

"Order some then! Oh, and I want these delivered by 4. Tod-"

 

"I don't deliver.  I don't have chrysanthemums. I don't sell flowers to annoying people. You seem insist on fitting into all three of these categories. Have. A. Nice. Day." Before the woman could say another word, Bellamy hung up the phone and promptly slammed his head onto the counter. 

 

He groaned as the bell above the door jingled. "Costumer couldn't read the sign through the phone again? Really, Blake, how could a giant ass red sign not be seen through the phone."

 

"Miller. Say one more word and you are on phone duty for the rest of the month." Even from his position with his head on the counter, Bellamy could tell Miller was raising his hands.  _Hey man, no we're cool._ Seemed to be an implied statement.

 

"No one deserves that type punishment, especially ones who don't even work here. Unless that was a job offer?" Miller was now rearranging the shop, obviously in the hope that Bellamy couldn't see what he was doing.

 

He could.

 

"The day I need an employee is the day I torch this place," Bellamy rose from his slumped position. "Touch one more flower and your finger is gone."

 

"Okay. Message received. Is this grouchy mood, one that is slightly more intense than usual, because of the new shop opening next door? Jas and Monty said you've been on edge since last week. I came by to make sure there weren't any dead bodies." Somehow during this sentence Miller had not only found a broom, but was carefully sweeping up the floor of the shop. Slowly and methodically pushing petals into piles. Bellamy got off his stool, grabbed the dustpan, and scooped up the mountains.

 

"I didn't realize I was so far up on the gossip chain. I'm honored." Miller's straight face pushed Bellamy for more, "I mean sure, the new store looks like its going to be a Tattoo Parlor and a lot of my customers are a little shaken up, but Rome didn't burn in a day and neither will my loyal customer base. I'm good Miller. Trust." The garbage bag were now filled with petals, Miller was now on the stool, and Bellamy was putting all the flowers in their original, pre-Miller, positions.

 

"You should go talk to her, she seemed nice, but cold, yeah. Nice but cold. I think the two of you will get along nicely." From his spot across the small shop, Bellamy could see Miller leaning. Miller was dangerous when he was leaning. Meant he was up to something.

 

"Her?"

 

"Yeah, her? The owner? Blake, the store is opening  _next_ _door._  Go say hi, why don't you?" Miller was now putting his entire upper body weight on the counter. 

 

Bellamy squared his shoulders, "Watch the shop for me."  _I need to see what's got Miller in such a fuss._

 

As Bellamy pushed open the door, Miller yelled, "Her names Clarke."

* * *

 

His Mom had started this store. She started it with money she didn't have and a dream she held onto.

 

His Mom and Octavia and Bellamy.

 

Things were never great but it was the three of them. 

 

Mom did the sales, Octavia ran among the customers, Bellamy did the flowers.

 

Of course, Bellamy didn't start with the flowers. Bellamy started by building the tables and sweeping the floors and watching Octavia and making the inventory. Mom arranged some flowers and went out on dates.

 

Then one day Mom wasn't there to arrange the flowers. Had stayed out for too long or too late. 

 

Bellamy gently clipped flowers from stems and gently fit them into bundles and gently so gently tied a careful bow around the bottom. (And even more gently places flowers in Octavia's hair)

 

And he ran the store. The flowers sold out.

 

He was twelve years old and his bouquets were perfect.

 

From that day on customers would come in  _asking_ for his flowers. His Mom was fine with the money and how popular the store was, she didn't even ask why all these people came for his flowers. She couldn't see what the world saw.

 

To everyone else the flowers in their little bundles were sweet, were pain, were art. There was no rhyme or reason to the bunches. Some had as few as three flowers, some as many as thirty, all carried that emotion through the meaningful care of their placement. 

 

Bellamy's love was evident in every single flower he sold. For years.

 

He was nine months sixteen when his Mom got sick. So sick so fast. Stage four lung cancer before the doctors noticed something was wrong. It took her five months to die. It took three for Bellamy to become emancipated. It took six for the courts to send fourteen year old Octavia to live in Connecticut with a distance Aunt.

 

Less than a year for Bellamy's life to fall apart.

 

But the flower shop remained open. Bellamy hired someone to watch the shop when he was in school, but Bellamy worked for an hour before school and seven hours after. Trying to keep the shop open, trying to bring Octavia home, trying to live through the pain of his mother, his anger at his father, his resentment for life.

 

And Bellamy's hatred bloomed with the flowers he grew.

 

Bellamy graduated a year early, got his GED as soon as he could. Took a college class when he could, but no often.

 

Bellamy got Octavia back after three years of loneliness.

 

Two years later and he was still working in the flower shop and it was both he and the stupid flower shop had slowly become apart of the community. Apart of the Scenary.

 

A year later, Octavia's second year of college, she brings back two friends. One named Jasper and one named Monty. 

 

and Bellamy makes a friend named Miller. 

 

and suddenly life isn't as bad as it used to be. 

 

But now here he is, in the present. And there is change in the air.

* * *

 

**My Garden**

_in the sun and in the rain_

_and in the day and in the night_

_pain is a flower_

_pain is flowers_

_blooming all the time._

_-Bukowski_

 

 


	2. We Have Everything and We Have Nothing

_**“butterblonds** _

_**with Cadillac souls** _

_**Cadillacs and butterflies** _

_**nothing and everything”** _

_-Bukowski*_

****  


The boxes were almost done being unpacked, the chairs had already been delivered, and Clarke was currently painting the walls a deep shade of red. When Raven had inquired about the color, Clarke had told her,

“It is the shade of new blood and the morning sunrise.”

And Raven hadn’t pushed any further.

That was a beautiful thing about Raven. She never pushed, she never bothered, but she was always present. A constant companion, loyal to a fault. A true friend.

One who was taking forever bringing the stencils in from the truck. Clarke jumps down from her step ladder and looks at her watch.

“She gets into _one_ car accident, hurts _one_ leg, and all of a sudden she can take 45 minutes to get 3 stencils from a truck 5 feet out the door.” Clarke mutters this as she puts down her roller filled with paint and walks towards the door, texting Raven on her phone as she goes.

To: RAVEN

From: CLARKE

-WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU. ARE YOU DEAD. RESPOND OR YOU WILL BE PRESUMED DEAD.

To: CLARKE

From: RAVEN

-IM TAKING TO A HOT GUY LEAVE ME ALONE. WHO USES THE WORD PRESUMED IS A TEXT MESSAGE YOU NERD.

To: RAVEN

From: CLARKE

-YOU’RE TALKING TO A BOY! LET ME COME OUT AAA-

“OUCH!”

The door had been opened right into her skull.

“Don’t you dare run after him.” Raven was now standing before her, holding the stencils, one hand on her hip. Attitude. And clearly not in the mood for apologizing for Clarke’s injured skull.

“Okay okay fine!” Clarke raises her hands in surrender, but she is far from done, “JUST TELL ME HIS NAME DID YOU GIVE HIM YOUR NUMBER THIS IS SO EXCITING!”

Raven moved to put away the stencils, “Wick. Yes. Stop yelling, its not a big deal.”

But they both knew it _was_ a big deal. Huge deal. Incredibly awesome deal.

“Yes! Okay! I am cool calm Clarke. Reporting for duty sergeant.” Her face became stoic, but her lips twitched ever so slightly.

“Lies.” But Raven chuckled anyway.

And then the door opened.

“Hey read the sign dipshit, not open!”

 

* * *

 

 ****  
Clarke's childhood had been golden. Golden child, golden life, for the girl with the golden hair.

 

Her Dad was an engineer, built towers that touched the sky, told Clarke she could grow up to touch the clouds. And she tried.

 

Her Mom was the doctor, cut open a person's chest to fix them, told Clarke she had to work hard to achieve things. And she did.

 

She grew up though, grew up as the sole child of two very rich parents, grew up best friends with the governor's son, grew up knowing that she was going to be great. Because she was  _great._ She would be _remembered_. 

 

Her first year of college she was pre-med  _and_ art. Clarke could handle the studies so she did. Clarke tried to paint the clouds so she could touch them and tried to achieve by working so so impossibly hard. Because when you work hard you achieve things. Achieve _great_  things. 

 

Second year of college, she had dropped her art major because great people can't have distractions. Her Mom was so proud of her. Her Dad was disappointed and Clarke didn't know why.

 

Second year of college was when her father realized a building on State street had a massive structural problem. It could have come down at any moment. He went to the owners. Told them about the problems. Told them they needed to close the building down. 

 

He ended up shot in the head. His reputation ruined. Everyone thought that he was trying to  _cover up_ the problems. Not expose them. 320 people are dead and it was somehow her Dad's fault.

 

Her Dad was lowered into the ground with Clarke standing over his body, alone.

 

Abby Griffin, then the Mayor of their fine city, could not associate with such corruption. Could not mourn her husband publicly. But in the safety of their home, Abby and her daughter would cry cry cry and hold onto each other. Hold each other so close.

 

Wells was the one who found the body, he was an intern of the owners. The ones who killed her father. 

 

He had tried to apologize. Over and Over and Over again.

 

Governor Jaha had mourned with Clarke and her Mother.

 

Everything was so so so wrong.

 

Clarke would scream and scream and scream at the clouds, for they had promised her dreams and left her with wishes. So many wishes.

 

Her mother and Jaha would look upon her in silence, for they had long ago lost their voices to words that crawled down their throats, unspoken. Choked on their trepidations

 

Wells would beg for forgiveness some more. For things that couldn't change wouldn't change oh and how the world has gone wrong.

 

Clarke's had been broken. Broken and lost.

 

So she had retreated into her study's. Appease the Mom she has. Appease the Mother she has. Appease the Parent she has.

 

Clarke became first in her class.When her Mother moved past her mourning, her Mother was devoted to her daughter. And her city. Her city then her daughter. But Clarke will be  _Great._

 

Then came the murder trial. Two months before the start of Clarke's third year of college. They had caught the guy with the gun. Hired. Paid for through off shore bank accounts, nothing could be proven. They caught the  _man._ Good enough. The murdered man, father, husband, engineer, disgraced engineer was not worth the troubles of the public. The one doing the killing had been apprehended.

 

Then Wells testified. Testified, finally, that his employers were old friends of his father, Governor Jaha, and widower, Abby Griffin. That they had donated generous amounts to both of their political campaigns. That Jaha and Abby were told that Jake Griffin was a treat. That Jake Griffin had to be kept quite.

 

And he testified how Abby and Jaha tried to keep Jake Griffin quite. How Jake Griffin resisted. How he ended up dead with a bullet in his brain and a blonde haired daughter crying over his corps.

 

Thelonious Jaha was sentenced to house arrest. For contracting the murder of Jake Griffin. Gets off easy because of his connections and friendships in high places.

 

But there was, apparently, no punishment for keeping your mouth shut as your husband was murdered. And there was no evidence that Abby Griffin knew. 

 

Abby left her position of mayor, returned to her hospital position. Head of Surgery.

 

Clarke dropped out of college. Burned her medical text books. Moved to a small apartment in the Bronx. Brought only her some clothes and her art supplies and paints and paints and paints her pain away. Canvas turns to paper turns to walls and soon her entire apartment is a masterpiece of Clarke's emotions. 

 

Clarke gets better. Rebuilds herself. Becomes as much Clarke as she can be.

 

She wore her Father's watch to her first gallery opening. Wanted him there with her. 

 

She met Raven that night.

 

For her twenty first birthday, Clarke called Wells and he came over for a beer and they tried to live with each other.

 

Two months after, Clarke talked to Wells when she can handle it. When it doesn't bring her to tears.

 

She was nearly fine again, as fine as she could be. That was when Raven asked if Clarke knew how to do tattoos. 

 

And the rest is history.

 

Until that stupid door opens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *An excerpt from ‘something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks, and you...’
> 
>  
> 
> I don't know how long this story will be, but it will include some of the main events of the actual show (if I can think of a modern day equivalent that makes sense/is realistic) And I have moved most of the ages around to fit the story. There is of course the big difference-they all don't live/grow up in the same town called 'Ark'. That has been completely removed from this. But feel free to imagine it that way if you prefer, all these characters just 'missing' each other. Passing by but never taking notice until they had too.
> 
>  
> 
> This took longer than I wanted to update. I just had to find the right poem to start this with, and I hope I did. (And Clarke is much harder to write, I hope I did her justice.)
> 
> Of course, please kudos? and comment? It is incredibly appreciated. Truly.


	3. Blamesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke meet, and the day is known as blamesday.

_**hooray say the roses, today is blamesday** _

_**and we are red as blood** _

* * *

**  
  
**

Bellamy knew there was a reason he had been avoiding the shop next door.

And it wasn’t because he was against tattoos or because his customers hated it or even because he now had a new upstairs neighbor. No. It was because no one had thought to involve him in the leasing of the building. Because no one asked his opinion on the new tenant.

Because up until this point everyone on the street elected Bellamy the leader. (Well, not _leader_ but close enough) Because when the entire street flooded, he was the one trusted with bothering the city to send some to fix the sewers. Because whenever someone had a hardware problem, or was being harassed, he was the one to call. Because he was the one all the landlords turned to when approving new tenants.

Because everyone on the block had the Blake seal of approval except this Clarke girl. And yeah, he was bitter about it. Bitter because the landlord was an old friend of the Governor, had never listened to Bellamy, used launder money through old pottery studio that was there, left the storefront open and run down since that nasty business with Griffin murder.

But he was mostly bitter that everyone had okayed her and hadn’t asked his opinion. Even his best friend.

And if he didn’t have reason to be bitter enough, there was the:

“Hey read the sign dipshit, not open!”

Oh, he hated her.

So he barked out, “If you didn’t want someone to enter, you should lock the door.” He turned to face the dark haired woman who was yelling at him. “And dipshit? Be original.”

The scowl on her face said enough, but just when she opened her mouth to insult him again (and hopefully, be more creative about it), a blonde woman Bellamy hadn’t noticed placed a hand on the ‘dipshit’ woman’s shoulder.

“Raven, calm. Deep breaths okay?”

Now that the blonde had Bellamy’s attention, he realized that he had been wrong. Dipshit was not Clarke, but this woman with a small smile on her lips didn’t spread to the rest of her face, eyes pale blue ice chips. _Nice, but cold_. Just like Miller had said.

Better get the introductions over with, so with an extended hand “I’m Bellamy. You must be Clarke.”

And the blonde woman nodded her head ‘yes’, and reached for his hand. “If only we didn’t meet with you barging into my shop.” Hands let go, dropped back to their respective sides.

If that’s how its gonna be, “We would have meet sooner, had you followed the rules like everyone else.”

Her forehead crinkled ever so slightly between her eyes, then “Rules?”

“Yes. Rules. You know what rules are, don’t you? Some places would consider it common decency, but around here, rules.” Bellamy’s nails were digging into his palm as he struggled to maintain a calm voice,  “The kind where before you set up shop, you actually talk to the neighbors? Or, perhaps, give notice of your occupancy? Those kind of _rules_."

The crinkle intensified, “Excuse me, Bellamy was it? Not all of us can read minds. Next time you choose to set up ‘rules’” She actually held up air quotes, “Make sure everyone can receive your messages, perhaps send a fax?” Annoyance was coming off her in waves, but her voice never got above a calm volume. Not that Bellamy would ever say it out loud, but it was kind of intimidating.

It was even more so when Raven backed up and started to look busy, (though she had a slight tilt of her head showing she was still listening.) It was as if she was distancing herself from the possible carnage, and it was very worrying. So Bellamy did the thing he did best, and struck first.

“Oh yes! Sorry I couldn’t make my brain messages more accessible! Here. Consider this an upgrade from your fax. YOU moved into MY neighborhood. YOU move next to MY store. YOU possibly jeopardize MY business. But I am in the wrong? Please explain to me, your majesty, how you came to this conclusion?” He stepped closer to her, into her personal space, “What? Your parents taught you to be entitled? Rich Mom and Dad? Friends with Kane and Jaha? They probably, told you that the world was yours for the taking, right? Well, let me break it to you. I know how hard it is for a little miss princess to get down and dirty with us peasants, but this is the way the world works. People like me? We don’t get trust funds, we don’t get do overs, we work and work and work and things have to be done a certain way. So, excuse me if I get upset when my livelihood is threatened by some out of touch _princess_ with no sense of the world around her.” Bellamy was so close to her that her breath ghosted over his cheekbones. Her cheeks were the color of roses.

He turned to leave, but then she spoke, “How did you know that I knew Marcus Kane?” Her voice was strong, but there was a slight tilt of worry in her tone. He had hit a sore spot, maybe taken it too far, but he did not say sorry.

As he walked out he answered, “He owns the building. Only leases to personal friends or people he owes favors to. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.” (For some reason Raven chuckled at that.) But he still made his way to the door, and she wasn’t following him out, he didn’t hear feet and then-

“You don’t know anything about me.”

And maybe he didn’t, but the door had already closing and he wasn’t inclined to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title, and excerpt for the poem, are once again taken from Bukowski.
> 
> Sorry if this sucks, and that its kinda short. It was tough to write and I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it, but if I don't post now I never will so here goes nothing.


	4. Like a light from under a door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bellamy falls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There is a lot of swearing in this chapter, though if you've made it this far, I doubt it bothers you terribly much.

Bellamy had been stubborn. Currently _is_ stubborn, but had been incredibly obstinate about this subject in particular.

“The closest thing a person could get to a mule.” Thats what Miller yelled at him, two days after the first conversation... _okay_ confrontation Bellamy had had with Clarke. Miller might have followed said more, but they fell on deaf, 2000% _done_ ears.

That was until Miller decided to yell “A good man wouldn’t sit here and hide, Bellamy!”

But Bellamy never claimed to be one, never once had he ever even stopped to consider himself a _good_ man. What use was ‘good’ anyway? When the going gets tough, no one will sit around waiting for the good, the noble, the just, they wait for the ones who are ready to make the tough decisions. The ones who are willing to sacrifice things, the ones who know what it means to lose and lose and lose but still get up and will do anything not to lose again. But instead of telling Miller this, Bellamy says,

“An even better one would know not to enter a fight he can’t win.” And that shuts Miller up, because its true. Clarke is there to stay, along with her downright _scary_ friend and the apparent never ending list of people to moon over them.

Present company included.

“All I’m saying Bell is that it wouldn’t hurt to go make nice. Raven is still intimidating as all hell, but Clarke? I don’t get what you mean when you say that she is a Princess, she is honestly as fair from it as you are...although there are some times-”

“If you want to keep breathing you are going to stop talking.”

Miller raised his hands in defence, “Fine man, whatever. But your are going to find yourself surprised. Eventually.”

“Yeah sure, if you say so. We going to meet Jas, Monty, and O or what?”

Miller nodded his head, and as they moved out the shop door and Bellamy locked up, Miller mumbled,

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject like tha- OWW!”

“Told you to shut up, Miller.”

 

* * *

Damn him.

Damn Miller and his fucking mouth and his fucking brain and oh fuck her too. Because, why the fuck not its her fucking fault too.

Four fucking weeks.

Thats all it took to break him down, turn him into a man that follows a woman around with fucking heart eyes, all it took for him from a bitter, broken (very lonely) man, to a bitter, slightly less broken, man that was constantly surrounded by people who he felt obligated to take care of.

Oh, and he had a, well, a...a _crush.._.on Clarke.

Fucking fuck what was he turning into.

It all started because someone was dying, really.

_Bellamy was just leaving the store in the somewhat capable hands of Miller, (So what if he ran the store better than Bellamy, he still couldn’t tell the difference between a petunia and a daisy) and was on his way to lunch when a girl collapsed on the sidewalk._

_Bellamy had ran forward to help her, but before he even made it two steps someone had yelled, “Get Clarke! I’ll call an ambulance.” Get Clarke? And then he saw that the person who had yelled was Raven and that she already had a phone in her hands and he fucking ran inside her shop and_

_“CLARKE THERE-THERE IS A GIRL! ON THE GROUND! RAVEN SAID-” He didn’t even finish before Clarke was running past him and was outside and next to the girl in thirty seconds flat and all Bellamy was follow and panic and he didn’t know what to do what could he do what should he be doing?_

_Clarke didn’t seem to be having that problem she was already calmly talking into Raven’s phone and checking on the girls pulse and she was so in control and steady and Bellamy had been freaking the fuck out and his ears had been ringing and the world had gone silent so he ended up just frozen and had stared at the girl on the ground and waited_

_It had felt like years but might have been minutes but the girl was lifted into the ambulance, and Bellamy had finally felt his knees relax and he just..sat down. Right there on the sidewalk, and Clarke had walked right past him into her shop like business as usual._

Bellamy had thought about that for three solid days after that, and on the fourth day things had changed some more.

_Literally seconds after Bellamy closed up shop, ready to head over to Monty’s and Jas’s apartment, Clarke and Raven exited their shop because of fucking course they were heading out as well. Bellamy had turned to Miller, down right growled “Am I supposed to believe you didn’t plan this?” and Miller had only shrugged and said,_

_“Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways my friend.”_

_And then from the low rough voice of Clarke, “And other times your friends invite your bitter neighbor out to drinks, and pretends not to know anything about it.”_

_Bellamy had given her a sideways glance, and grumbled, “I refuse to even think about this until there is a beer in my hands.”_

_Raven and Miller’s reactionary smiles had been terrifying._

_Then when they had gotten to Monty and Jasper’s apartment, started drinking, talking amongst each other, that Bellamy realized how close Clarke and Raven had gotten with his friends, that both of them were hilarious and worked well among them and maybe, he thought, maybe he had been a little bit wrong and Miller had been more than a little bit right._

_That and Clarke was a giggly drunk._

_She found every single thing that anyone said to be the funniest thing she had ever heard. Jasper had even created a game where they would randomly say a random word “Cheese” and time to see who could get her to laugh the longest._

_Not surprising, he lost spectacularly. Bellamy had only gotten a light giggle out of her with the word “Glass” because he was horrible under pressure and maybe he lacked the creative sense of humor the game required._

_To his complete horror, O had won. Completely beaten the competition into the dust by quietly mumbling, “Platter.” Now why that made Clarke laugh for a full ten minutes was beyond him, but the fact that it also made Raven chuckle told him he was on the outside of a shared inside joke._

That had the night he started to become friends with Clarke. Because, hell, Octavia liked her enough to have secret jokes, he could handle being around her long enough to hold a conversation.

After that it became little things like the way her eyes would flash with excitement when she came up with an idea for a tattoo or how sometimes she would stop by the shop to give him a sandwich for lunch. That whenever something upset her she liked to have hot chocolate with so many marshmallows you could barely fit them all in the mug.

But what really got him, what really through him for a loop, was her art.

_She had invited him over, “My apartment is only ten feet away from yours. Come on, I need a drinking buddy and Raven is on a date with that engineer guy.”_

_And for some reason he found himself nodding yes._

_Thats how Bellamy ended up sitting in her apartment. Clarke had disappeared into what he assumed was her bedroom, mumbled something about having to change. She had closed the door, leaving him in a dark blackness except for the dim light creeping out from under her door._

_So he had fumbled around for a light switch, and when he finally succeeded, the newly illuminated room was on fire. Every of the wall before him was engulfed in flame, ghosts of people, of bodies, were scattered across it. But in the very center, there was a girl, holding her knees, her blonde hair covering most of her face, the only thing not burning a bright, furious red._

_And Bellamy understood._

From then on he had been a goner. He knew it, Miller knew it, hell the lady down the block who sold him bread, the mailman, even Octavia who was constantly busy with school and Lincoln, who barely had time to talk to him, knew it.

But then she started _dating_. A _woman_. Named _Lexa_.

Just thinking about it made Bellamy’s insides squeeze, fuck that the most.

 

* * *

 

_**these boys** _

_**might** _

_**rise like** _

_**Lazarus to** _

_**gaze upon the** _

_**still living female,** _

_**and then** _

_**get drunk** _

_**drunk** _

_**until in all** _

_**falls apart** _

_**so sad** _

_**again.** _

  
*an excerpt from  _Class_ by Charles Bukowski

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW OKAY. It has taken me an exceedingly long time to, well, find time to write this. AP U.S. History finals wait for no man! Or woman. Or teenager. You get the point.
> 
> Well anyway, I tried to make this chapter longer than the others because, sorry, but also in my haste to complete this I might have made a few errors, WHICH I WILL FIX...after I've slept for about 14 hours because life.
> 
> Please kudos and comment and bookmark, you have no idea how amazing it is to see people liking this story.
> 
> If you wanna check it out, my tumblr is
> 
> isleepthroughlife.tumblr.com


	5. Bluebird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke takes notice to change

_there's a bluebird in my heart that_

_wants to get out_

_but I'm too tough for him,_

_I say, stay in there, I'm not going_

_to let anybody see_

_you._

 

 

 

It’s weird. How your priorities change, between the Before and the Now and the After.

__

Like how before, all Clarke cared about was avoiding the past, starting new.

__

And how now, she had friends. She had friends and a tattoo parlor and a growing collection of paintings and sketches taking up the space in her bedroom.

__

And a Girlfriend.

__

(Lexa had happened a week ago, and Clarke wasn’t sure how she felt about that development. Lexa came with a lot of baggage, a lot of terms and conditions. But Clarke liked Lexa, even if she hated Raven and her other friends, even if she lead a motorcycle gang, because she took up most of the space that Finn had left behind.

__

Most of it.)

__

Maybe after, Clarke will worry about buying a home. About a one year anniversary or stopping to see Wells on the weekends because they could be friends, real friends, again.

__

But before she could dream of a future, Clarke had to deal with the Now.

__

And apparently, Now meant Bellamy Blake holding a crate of flowers and banging on the front door of the shop.

__

“What! What is it, Blake?”

__

He held up the flowers like it was a response, and shoved his way past her.

__

“Closed sign!”

__

“Open sign! See? I can do it, too.” He sat the flowers down on the front work station, and leaned up against it with his arms crossed. Bellamy looked smug.

__

Clarke can play that game, “What do you want?”

__

A eyebrow raise, _Obvious_?

__

Clarke’s eyebrow followed suit, “A tattoo?”

__

A smile, “‘Bout time I got myself a Clarke original. The flowers are payment,” his head dipped. “Low on cash funds and such.”

__

“That’s not necessary, Blake. Friends are free.” Because they were friends. They had the same friends between them, they could make each other laugh, and Clarke could count on him. Could count on him in a way that she wasn’t used to. It was strange, being about to rely on someone.

__

“As a friend, you know I can’t accept that,” Even with his meager salary and never ending hours, he would never accept a handout. And she couldn’t expect him to, because she wouldn’t either. “Besides,” He continued. “They’re old. Couldn’t sell them if I wanted to.”

__

Clarke didn’t believe that, but accepted them anyway.

* * *

 

 

For a while, before, Bellamy seemed to be on the same level as her.

Clarke can’t for the life of her remember what made her invite him over that night, she knew what people saw when they looked at her walls, maybe she wanted him to see how much she was hurting, and maybe because she was already drunk.

But it doesn’t matter the reasons for her offering, he ended up agreeing.

So they had made their way into her apartment, and she had left the lights off, had gone into her room and changed her clothes, had waited for the lights to flicker on before coming back out.

Just as expected, Clarke had found Bellamy staring straight at the girl on the wall, and had seen a flash of unexpected understanding when his eyes moved over to hers, but that had gone as quickly as it had come. They had been left in a too bright room with a burning girl on the walls and a tense silence between them.

Until.

“I think I was promised alcohol.”

* * *

 

_there's a bluebird in my heart that_

_wants to get out_

_but I'm too clever, I only let him out_

_at night sometimes_

_when everybody's asleep._

_******  
** _

All that was left was the After.

_**** _

Bellamy kept reaching out with open arms, willing and waiting to catch her whenever she started to slip.

_**** _

Like the days after the long nights with Lexa, the ones were lexa couldn’t back away from the dark night sky.

__

 

_“I was in love before.” They would be up on the roof, her and Lexa, and they would share a joint and blow smoke at the stars._

_**** _

_“Haven’t we all been.” Clarke would try not to resent Lexa when she would get like this, when she would get reminiscent and go dark for days. She would try and not hate that it was so much like herself._

_**** _

_Lexa would breathe out a could and say, “I mean love. Like I will die for you, you are it for me, kind of thing. And then she died and it crushed me, and thats when I decided love was for people who were willing to be weak, and that I wasn’t.”_

_**** _

_“I hate that I know what you mean.” Because she did, she knew what that was like, had felt that feeling in her chest and it had crushed her._

_**** _

_“Doesn’t everyone.”_

 

After, they would go inside and forget with their bodies, hoping that lips and tongues and hands could erase what thoughts occupied their brains.

__

It never worked though.

__

After, Clarke was still a little bit gone, stuck in the time of Before. Being overwhelmed by it.

__

And it was the reason, most nights, that she would climb up the stairs to the apartment next door, and knock.

__

Bellamy would open the door and say, “Bad day?” and she would nod her head and in they would go, curl up on the couch like commas and watch whatever movie Bellamy would proclaim to be,“The best damn movie ever, I mean it this time.”

__

He meant it every time.

_****  
_

* * *

_I haven't quite let him_

_die_

_and we sleep together like_

_that_

_with our_

_secret pact_

_and it's nice enough to_

_make a man_

_weep, but I don't_

_weep, do_

_you?_

_****-Bluebird_ By Charles Bukowski

_******  
** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken me quite a while, hasn't it?
> 
> It doesn't feel like it has, but then again, time is funny like that.
> 
> I must have started this chapter a dozen times, and eleven of those times it was wrong, its taken me so many months to figure it out, Clarke is hard like that. She is so impossibly difficult to get right, and honestly, I don't even know if this is right. It feels like it is, but who knows? The Clarke in my head is probably different than yours or anyone else's. 
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. 
> 
> (There is more to come, and I promise it will come much faster than this one.)


	6. Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy gets his tattoo

I am unable to answer

and down the sidewalk I go

shamed

unable to tell her

of the knife inside me

I do notice though the sun is shining

that the flowers are pulled up on

their strings

and I on mine.

-excerpt from _A Nice Day_ by Bukowski

* * *

**  
  
**

It didn’t take long to notice the tattoos that would climb over shirt collars, encircle wrists, and glide over breast bones. Not long at all, especially after he noticed that those who adorned them were his friends.

Jasper with goggles between his fingers, Monty with some chemical code around his wrist, Raven with the giant wretch down her bum leg, and Octavia with a butterfly that if you looked closely was made of knives. He finally opens his mouth to ask what the fuck is going on when he sees a pair of police cufts curve around the skin behind Miller's ear.

“Since when have you had a tattoo?” Bellamy tries to make his voice carry a calm, uninterested tone.

Miller shrugs his shoulders, leans a bit on the bookshelves in Bellamy’s apartment, “Since Clarke asked me if I wanted one.”

“Sure, now tell me really.”

 

Hands raised in the defensive, “She walked up to me, asked if I wanted a tattoo, free, and I said yes.” Miller took a seat on the worn out couch next to Bellamy.

“And you agreed, and then you said police cuffs around my ear please?”

“No, she picked, where and what. She said it was one of the rules.”

Bellamy huffed, “Rules? Seriously?”

Miller stood up, rushed to the fridge like he could outrun this conversation. “Beer? I want a beer. You should have a beer.”

“Miller.”

“Fine. Rules, you can get what you want, of course, and all you have to do is ask and she’ll give you whatever. But if she wants to give you a tattoo and you agree then it’s what she wants to give you. As a weird courtesy or whatever. It’s not like she outright tells you you have to do anything or something like that.”

Bellamy put his elbows on his knees, head on his hands, “And she just does this then? Walks up to you and then you go and get a tattoo?”

“You’re wondering where yours is, then?”

 

“Shut up, Miller.”

* * *

 

 

Marching into her shop wasn’t going to be easy.

Clarke has a system, (he knows because he has asked, _over and over again_ , much to his friends’ annoyance) tap a person, they say yes or no, and then you enter followed her down whatever path she wants to take you on. And that worked ‘cause it was Clarke and of course people would follow her anywhere.

The problem was that she hadn’t tapped him, so he was jumping the line. Putting himself front and center because he was the one who held her and he was the one she could scream at when Lexa was difficult or she needed someone to blame and fuck it he needed to know what she thought of him.

Whatever she inked on his skin could not be a lie. It simply could not be.

Clarke seemed to adhere to certain Artistic Truths. Sure, she could draw a babe’s face on a mother’s arm, but that isn’t her Capital-A-Art. Everything that came out of her mind and into creation is one hundred percent what Clarke believed in, because that’s the kind of person Clarke was.

Clarke could lie to the world and lie to herself but her art was something that she didn’t get to choose.

 

(So maybe this was some crazy plan to see how Clarke felt about him but whatever, okay, he was long gone from her a while ago)

So he picked up a crate of flowers filled with blossoms that were missing one petal, the type of thing that just screamed _Clarke_ , and walked out the door towards her shop.

_______________

“Let me see! Come on!!!!” A body nearly tackles Bellamy to the ground as he walks into Jas and Monty’s appeartment.

“Jasper. Get. Off.” Not even waiting for a response of movement, Bellamy shoves the skinny boy away.

Miller and Monty run out from Monty’s bedroom when they hear the commotion, and Bellamy tries not to raise his eyebrows at the pair, but otherwise puts that new development on the backburner.

“What is this idiot talking about? Miller?”

The response is a to casual lean up against the nearest surface, which in this case is Monty, “We, I, umm, I told them what you were doing.”

Monty nodded, just as casually, “So, what do you think yours means? And what is it, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“It makes no sense to me. But then again, does anything that Clarke does ever make sense?” He hoped no one comments on his evasion, but Miller still raises an eyebrow. Bellamy reached across the counter and stole Jasper’s beer.

“Yes.” Miller stated matter of factly, “My Dad is a police officer, I follow rules and my morals and I don’t let people get away with bullshit.”

“Yeah! I had those goggles I used to wear all the time! And I think they just became my trademark or something…” Jasper glances at his wrist.

“Mine is the chemical formula for rocket fuel. Cause I sound like a rocket scientist to her or something like that.” A shrug from Monty.

Bellamy’s forehead creased, and she gives me this? Really Clarke? “Well, what did she give Lexa? Do any of you know?”

They all shrug their shoulders.

Well then.

* * *

 

The march to Clarke’s door had been hard, but it’s easy to walk towards something. He had felt like the flowers he had tied up in that crate, pulled in a direction, tied to others by a cord that just dug in. Dug into his skin, rubbed away more and more of his skin the more he tried to pull away and free himself. By walking towards Clarke, that was him giving up the last of his fight.

 

( _I’m much better off with them anyway.)_

 

He opens the door and is met with a scowl and a smile, is welcomed with a nod of blonde hair and is held close by cold hands and the sting of a needle on his left side. She says nothing the whole time, just does her job and when it’s over she slaps a bandage over it and says to keep it clean and all this other maintenance and health stuff that he forgets as soon as she says it. Why remember when the expert is right next door.  _Why remember when now you have an excuse to come and ask questions._

It’s the leaving that’s the hard part, Bellamy found out. The friction of the ground against his shoes was almost enough to force him back to her, but with each step the gravity that pulled him to her lessoned and as soon as he had stepped into his apartment it disappeared from him completely.

Locks and wood and distance don’t stop him from sliding slowly to the ground, the scrape of a needle still ghosting over his skin. The smell of Clarke still in his nose, clinging to his clothes.

Left with a bluebird on his ribs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Apology:  
> Hey there! I made this chapter a little longer than normal to make up for my absence but then again i've never been regular with the update schedule so this 'scatterbrainness' is probably to be expected (Unless you're new in which case I'm sorry if you get invested and have to wait forever but hey thanks for being invested and I'll try harder?)
> 
> The Request:  
> Speaking of people sticking around, it would be awesome to see who is returning and still reading this so could you be amazing and comment????? It would make my heart expand like the Grinch and extreme joy would ensue.
> 
> The Story:  
> This is already longer than anything i've ever written and I'm super happy people have been enjoying it and reading and everything! If things go as I plan them to things with Bellamy and Clarke should be picking up but you know how stubborn they are so lets see how that ends up working out, shall we?


	7. What Helps and What Doesn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, things happen. And then some things don't.

to walk across the floor

to an old dresser with a

cracked mirror-

see myself, ugly,

grinning at it all.

what matters most is

how well you

walk through the

fire.

-excerpt from  _How is your heart?_ by Bukowski

 

* * *

Clarke unlocks the door to the tattoo shop only to hear the sound of a tattoo gun already running.

There is a steady stream of conversation between Raven, Octavia, and Lincoln. Lincoln is the one with the tattoo gun, and it looks like Octavia is the one _getting_ the tattoo. Raven appears to only be there to makes sassy remarks and other kinds of snark.

None of them have noticed her yet.

So Clarke stands in the doorway, patiently waiting for one of them to look up. She turns her head when she hears the door open carefully behind her.

The man who has been following Raven around like a lost puppy appears. He raises two cups of Starbucks as explanation and she spies the name _Wick_ written sloppily on one of the sides. She raises an eyebrow in response. This was going to end poorly.

“Raven! I brought coffee, not to disturb your place of work or whatever but since you ran out on me last night I thought it would be nice to stop by and say hi!” Wick says this very enthusiastically, but his eyes twitch ever so slightly. _Huh_.

Raven jumps. (Lincoln remains steady, Octavia merely grins.)

“Wick!” Raven’s running toward him, _them_ , now and Clarke can’t stop a smile from creeping onto her face. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here!” She’s trying to push him out the door now, but Wick isn’t budging.

“Why, just bringing my Sweetums some morning coffee? It’s the proper _boyfriend_ thing to do, after all.”

“THAT’S IT. CONVERSATION. OUTSIDE. RIGHTS NOW.”

“Anything for my honey-OW.” Coffee was now scalding the poor man’s chest, and the both of them made their way out the door.

The eyes of Lincoln and Octavia finally make their way to her.

“Clarke!” Octavia yells, “You’re here early this morning!” Clarke nods her head at this, because she is in early this morning, has been coming in early all week. Not that anyone had been there to notice, unlike today.

“Are you here for a tattoo?” Not that Clarke didn’t already know the answer to this, because Octavia was getting a tattoo, it just didn’t seem to be a tattoo from Clarke.

“Actually.” Lincoln speaks up for the first time, “I’m here for a job interview. Octavia volunteered as a test client of sorts.” Clarke raises her eyebrows, both at the usual amount of words coming from the normally stoic man, and at the situation at hand.

Clarke walks towards the couple, and looks at the tattoo. It’s obviously not finished, as they had been interrupted, but there is a clean outline of what appears to be an anatomically correct bee on the skin just below her collarbone. _Impressive_.

“And Raven was conducting this interview?” Both of them nod. “You have clean lines, finish this up, call me over when it’s done. Then we’ll talk salary.”

Octavia smiles and nudges Lincoln's arm, he grunts out “Salary?”

“Please, don’t act like you didn’t already have the job the moment you walked in here.”

He smiles.

* * *

There are long periods of time that Clarke will stare into her cracked vanity mirror, and look and look and look and try to see if she can find anything of her father’s in her face.

Maybe he is in her crooked smile that peaks out from the corners of her lips, the pink tinge of her ears, the curl of her hair. Maybe he is in her eyes and how they are lightning blue, the lines that fall between her eyebrows, the curvature of her lips.

She spends so long looking in the mirror and tries not to see her mother. The woman that hides in the seriousness of Clarke’s gaze and in the sternness of her jaw and the heavyset scowl that often decorates her features.

Clarke can look for her father for as long as she wants, she is never not her mother’s daughter.

But every day she claims more and more of her father’s smile.

* * *

 

The wrench had been the first.

 

The night of her gallery opening, Clarke met both Finn and Raven.

Raven had been impressed by her art and had expressed this ad nauseum, much to Finn and Clarke’s amusement, to such a length that she had to be dragged away by Finn in the end. Raven had been drunk out of her mind and she, apparently, had some kind of work in the morning due to her “rocket scientist! I am one look me up” status, and Finn was her ride home.

He had given Clarke his number that night.

She had called him as soon as she had gotten home.

Before anyone could notice, two months had gone by and Clarke and Finn had gone on a multitude of dates. They had been happy.

But then Raven got in a car crash, and reality came barreling in.

Raven had gotten badly injured, and Finn had to take care of her. He was trying to fill the role of _boyfriend_ he had spent the last two months neglecting.

Not that he had told Clarke that. So she had stormed into _their_ apartment demanding explanations and found them making out on the couch.

So, needless to say, Finn had been booted from both of the women’s lives and they had become best friends. What else were they supposed to do?

Soon one thing lead to another and then _Tattoo Shop_. Like magic. (more like months of work and scheming and maybe a little blackmail)

About a month in, Raven had begun bemoaning her leg and how much trouble it was given her and Clarke decided to do something about it. So she sat Raven down and drew a wrench down the side of her leg. A wrench was a tool. Useful, strong. Something that made stubborn objects turn and submit to its power.

“What do you think?”

With a small smile, “I think it’s perfect.”

That had been the first.

* * *

Outside rain was pouring down and racing across the windows of Clarke’s apartment.

Inside, Lexa and Clarke were snuggled on the couch under a blanket , arguing about what to watch on netflix, when Raven came in to break up the party.

“Clarke a woman is on the phone and claiming that she’s your mother.” She had a scowl on her face that meant that this had to be dealt with or the world would be razed, “And you said that your mother was dead.”

“She is, in a metaphorical sense, at least.” Now Lexa and Raven were looking at her scornfully. Clarke rolled her shoulders, “She did a lot of really shitty things. And one major fucked up thing. And now it’s just better to pretend that she isn’t alive anymore, for my general mental health.”

Raven’s face was grim, “Fine, I’ll tell her to piss off or whatever. This is not the end of this discussion.” With that she headed downstairs, probably to fix that pesky light that kept flickering.

Clarke leaned into Lexa, “We don’t need to talk about this, do we?”

Lexa pulled away and looked Clarke in the eye and said,

“No. You pushed her out of your life for a reason.”

And that was that.

* * *

The others had happened almost by mistake.

(Just like how they each became a part of her life, Clarke became a part of their skin)

Each tattoo came with a reason, of course they did.

One because Jasper just didn’t look right without his goggles, he needed to be constantly prepared for something to blow up or go wrong because things always did around him; because she knew that Monty wasn’t a rocket scientist but his moonshine burned more than rocket fuel; because Octavia’s beauty was deadly and sharpe and she was constantly underestimated; because Miller was just and loyal and strong and his dad was his hero.

Lexa with the moon between her shoulders, because she was beautiful and she could move oceans. (Because she was cold and sometimes so distant that it was like the sun was shining and she wasn’t there at all)

And now, Bellamy with a bluebird on his ribs because he was her secret.

Because over the last five months of forever he snuck under her skin, slowly became her partner and the person who she could rely on. He was there for those long nights when sleep wouldn’t come and all she needed was company and hot chocolate to make the demons go away, he was the man who forgot to eat food and needed her to bring him lunch, and the man she could get drunk with and would watch _The Princess Bride_ with, knowing he would love it.

Because a week ago he had marched into her shop and asked her thoughts to be tattooed on his body.

Bellamy had been the thing she kept tucked away in her chest for a rainy day.

And now everyone who cared enough to look would know.

****  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooww look at me! Two chapters in one week. (no one pinch me, I don't need to wake up from this dream.)
> 
> It may be because I'm procrastinating other things in my life, (and I was in bed sick for three days so that lends to the wandering mind) but for right now I'm pretending I'm just being productive.
> 
> Thank you to those who commented on the last chapter, it really brighten up my week (which has been rather dismal)
> 
> For this weeks request, could you comment what you think of the characters so far? Like what impressions they have given you and how they interact with the other characters? Im just trying to get a general feeling of what's going on in your heads. (its kind of a mystery from this side of my computer screen)
> 
> -Loves.


	8. Rain breathing like lilies from the top of my head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clouds Break. So do some other things.

kiss kiss kiss

everything away,

I hope it rains today, I hope

the jets die, I hope

the kitten finds a mouse, I hope

I don’t see it, I hope

it rains, I hope

anything away from here

-Sunday before noon, _Bukowski_

 

* * *

The clouds are hanging overhead, making threats of rain. They have been at it all morning, moaning and groaning and growling, but haven’t followed through quite yet. Octavia had joked that morning that the clouds were pulling a ‘Bellamy’, it was a good enough comparison that Bellamy had smiled into his cereal.

Now that Bellamy had made it into _Aurora’s_ , however, the clouds had become less of an amusement. It had been overcast for almost an entire week, as it often does in the late fall, but the clouds had only opened up to a drizzle, but that had been days ago, and it was getting rather annoying. People were staying inside to avoid a possible downpour, but this meant that no one was stopping by the shop, and this made work both boring and worrying. Sure, Bellamy had a few special party’s booked for the weekend so he wasn’t going to go out of business by any means, but the rest of his little neighbourhood was suffering a bit. He had sent out some excess flowers to everyone around, it’s not like he was using them, but there wasn’t much else he could do. Then there was the issue of boredom. All he could do all day was pace around his shop, maybe move some flowers around, re-read books, and think. Think think think think think.

That had been his week, and Bellamy was determined to make this day, this lonely and slow thursday, into something special.

 

* * *

 

Nights crept by slowly. They were filled with the slow tick tick of his analog clock. (To which Octavia, and everyone else who entered his apartment, bemoaned “Of course you own one of these.”) They held the ruffle of pages from books in his hands. The strong smell of Green that came from the flowers he had growing in pots; and those pots were everywhere, the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the _bathroom_. Although, since it was a studio apartment, that was not a hard feat to accomplish. Nights used to hold the cries of women and the groans of men, but those nights had long passed.

Now nights mostly held waiting. Everything in Bellamy’s domain holding it’s breath in anticipation, the clock holding on to its tock for as long as possible before letting out a tick. Seconds would extend, the plants would hush, pages would still, echoes of old cries would cease. And Bellamy? Bellamy would sit and wait for a night when the door would open, and in Clarke would creep. The light from the hallway spilling onto the floor.

This week though, it was like waiting for a storm to come.

For so long, every three days or so, Clarke would click open the lock and roll the knob and push away the worn wood and step onto his floor. They would drink cheap beer, huddle up on his couch, watch some movie or sit in silence, talk about nothing or everything, yell about the mets or the yankees or Clarke would yell about Lexa or her mom. Bellamy would lean into her side and nod.

One night Bellamy cried and Clarke held onto him, being the rock he had been for everyone else for so long.

Those were the Nights, and in the approach of morning sun, at the song of bluebirds, they would break away and pretend that, sure, they were friends. Friends. What else were they? Nothing. Nothing at all.

* * *

 

It is noon and the clouds have not yet broken.

Bellamy sits behind his counter, feet resting on the bottom rung of the stool. Knees bouncing. The bell above the door rings and Bellamy’s head jerks up. Aware, waiting.

“Not who you wanted it to be, huh? Little ol’ Miller not enough for you these days.” Miller feigns hurt. He knew perfectly well what Bellamy was waiting for.

Bellamy folded his arms on the counter and rested his head upon them, “Why are you here?” He groaned towards the floor.

“Tattoo shop isn’t open today. Clarke and Lexa had a fight,” Miller leans onto the counter in front of Bellamy. “Have been arguing all week, in fact. Something about Lexa not asking about Clarke’s mother, and Clarke being too pushy and wanting too much and there was something about the sex being-”

Bellamy’s hand had covered Miller's mouth before he could continue. “There are some things, Miller, a guy just doesn’t want to know.”

“You should go talk to her.”

A hand reached up to ruffle his hair, and “I don’t think Lexa would appreciate that very much.”

“Just get out of here you loser.”

* * *

 

With each step he rose, thunder bloomed.

 

It was half past noon, and the clouds grew as dark as midnight.

With each step, the clocks ticked, the pages rustled, the plants drew in a hushed breath, and Bellamy gained hope. Just a little.

It was like climbing up a mountain, like getting closer and closer to the sun. It was like getting ready to go on stage and greeting the eponymous character, finally having the chance to share center stage.

Bellamy hoped that he could stay, hide out in the spotlight a little longer, because never before had he been a major character and he was just getting used to the blinding light.

His knuckles grazed the rough wood as he paused before knocking. Deep breath. Thunk Thunk Thunk.

The door opened to a flood of turpentine, Clarke covered in spots of dark blue and yellow and grey paint. A splash of violet across her cheek.

“I heard you and Lexa had an argument.” Bellamy said this softly. Carefully.

_I hope she’s fine._

Clarke shook her head, her voice icy. “We had an ending.” And then she retreated back into her apartment. Bellamy followed soundlessly.

It was weird being back in there, she was usually the one who indicated contact, the one to come and knock on his door.  She had painted over her mural, the one on fire, and had replaced it with a smooth blanket of a night sky, the girl now filled in the colors of a growing sunrise.

_I hope this means she’s getting better._

“Do you know why I know it’s over?” Clarke was drinking a beer. Chugging a beer. Handed one over to him.

“She respected your boundaries.”

“No.”

“She didn’t eat you out enough.”

“Definitely not!”

Bellamy raised an eyebrow, and paused for a while before saying, “She wouldn’t fight for you.”

A silence, a deep breath.

“Lexa would never be someone who would get over invested. She wasn’t the type to put all of her eggs in one basket. Lexa always wanted an out, she wanted casual, she wanted easy. She wanted someone who wouldn’t ask questions and would understand the sacrifice of feelings and caring for the sake of survival and protection. If she had to choose between her friends, her other life, herself, and me? She would have to choose herself. And I could never, ever, blame her for that. But I would have chosen her. If she let me. If she could allow me to get there. If Lexa wasn’t so afraid of being weak. But love isn’t weakness, and she can never see that. And that’s why we broke up. She could never choose me. And I couldn’t choose her because of that.”

_I hope you know you know you know._

“Clarke, someday someone is going to choose you and they are going to choose you back. It wasn’t Lexa, who gives a fuck? There are almost eight _billion_ people on this god forsaken planet. And I know at least seven who would serve their hearts on a platter if you asked them to.”

“And does that seven include you?”

They were standing so close, so so so close that they were sharing air. Standing with their toes touching. She smelled like turpentine and he smelled like Green.

“You know it does.”

His lips on her cheek, her mouth tucked against his neck.

“We broke up, because she asked me if I could let you go.”

“And?”

“And I said no.”

“And then you broke up.”

“Yes.”

And after what seemed like months of waiting, the clouds broke open. The rain poured down, surrounded them in a blanket of sound as they kissed. The flash of lightning and the clash of thunder and the soft touch of lips. Fingers running through hair.

The smell of turpentine, the smell of Green, the smell of rain.

And some new hope.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the last chapter, it wasn't anything like I wanted it to be, but when you can write you write. Am I right? (ha)
> 
> Tell me what you think of this one? It's such a dramatic shift and it would be really great to know if you guys like this change and how/when it happened. 
> 
> Clarke's POV is next, obviously, because in the span of a week everything has really shifted for her. (and Bellamy but you just saw that) Hopefully it shouldn't take me that long to post that....
> 
> Loves
> 
> (also, exactly 10,000 words? I couldn't resist)


	9. out of the arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is drunk.

_Out of the arms of one love_

_And into the arms of another_

_I have been saved from dying on the cross_

_By a lady who smokes pot_

_Writes songs and stories,_

_And is much kinder than the last,_

_Much much kinder_

_And the sex is just as good or better_

* * *

 

Thursday was a night to get piss drunk, stay in bed and fuck.

 

That's what Clarke decided.

 

Thursday was the day to go find herself a _someone_ and let them tear into her skin, let them break her bones and live in her bed until the sun set, till the moon reached midnight. It was a day meant for the wasting.

 

Thursday was a curse and a funeral and a happily painful memory. _The things that sting are the things that matter_. And Finn had fucking stung. Like alcohol in a wound.

 

Which reminded her, the whiskey was gone.

 

So she stumbled out, into the inky black night. Or at least out of her bed before she passed out on the floor. Drunk.

 

That had been the terrible Thursday, and then on an entirely different Thursday, she met Lexa.

 

And the whole thing started over, but it was supposed to be _better_.

 

* * *

 

_It isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,_

_It is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn't_

_Work_

_As all love_

_Finally_

_Doesn't work....._

 

* * *

 

Clarke was the kind of person that fell in love and left with more cuts and bruises than she had started with. Her love was more like a crash than a fall. A violent accident that always, always left casualties.

 

Dad, Finn, Lexa, Wells who else had to leave before she learned. Learned her lesson before there were more graves and scares to mar her body and her mind.

 

Dad, dying. Finn, burning her inside out.  Lexa, Clarke’s heart in her hands. Wells. Wells Wells Wells. He was gone to, that boy she used to hold and love. He was gone in a way that was more painful because he was still breathing and had his heart beating but things could never ever go back. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just was.

 

All love scars and burns and fades into obscurity. Or it stays and you are left with too much everything.

 

Either way it’s ruined. It ruins.

 

Every single fucking god damned time.

* * *

 

_I have died too many times_

_Believing and waiting, waiting_

_In a room_

_Staring at a cracked ceiling_

_Waiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound..._

_Going wild inside_

 

* * *

whiskey whisky amber liquid in a glass then down a throat in a gut

each drop goes down

done with whiskey have a beer have two or three or five odd numbers always work the best they burn so much nicer that way why do they vodka

empty bottle glass glass glass shiny. shiny shiny shiny.

a paint brush looks nice like this here in all the Shine Shine like stars and Shine like sun Shine like a smiles are made with teeth sharp white points that look so soft that they could be stars

Shiny Shiny stars Shiny sun and colors

Such nice colors

 

“Clarke, you don’t need clouds to have dreams. You are one. You are made of dreams.”

“Dreams are for children, Dad.”

“Clarke you are fire. You are everything that is bright and burns. You burn through a goddamn forest and heal the fucking planet.”

“Fire hurts, Finn.”

“You be the day, you and your golden hair and sunshine smile. Clarke you can be a sunrise. Like a special promise, like hope and a new day and morning. Early morning light. You are so Beautiful.”

“You can be my night, my sky my stars just take my hand Lexa just reach reach reach for it I’m waiting.”

 

paint paint to hide things so feelings don’t feel anymore

 

_knock knock knock_

 

“Who’s there?”

 

_Everyone left a while ago_

* * *

 

_Out of the arms of one love_

_And into the arms or another_

_It's not pleasant to die on the cross,_

_It's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in_

_The dark._

 

* * *

 

Clarke knew that Bellamy could taste the stale liquor on her tongue.

 

He might not have noticed, before she kissed him, that she was halfway sober. That Clarke was halfway drunk.

 

He might have smelled the paints. Smelled the paints and not the rest, the smell was thick in the air and she couldn’t smell him through it.

 

She knew he smelled clean, though. That if she could break through her own retched taste that Bellamy might taste like rain. Or cupcakes. Or spearmint. But she couldn’t, all Clarke could taste was bad.

 

Bellamy pulled away. Moved his hands from her hair to her shoulders.

 

“You don’t want this. Not now.”

 

Bellamy pulled her by the waist, pulled her through the colors and bottles and memories and papers and pens. Pulled her through a door that looked like hers and into a bed that felt like him. Like comfort and Clarke felt like sighing.

 

“Clarke.” He said, he sounded close. Like next to her or below her. “Sleep Clarke.”

 

Clarke buried her nose into her not pillow on her maybe bed. “Story.”

 

In the lightest, gruffest, whisper, “A man made of darkness fell in love with the princess of spring. Because that’s how it always goes…”

 

And she fell asleep.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem- OUT OF THE ARMS... by Bukowski, as always.
> 
>  
> 
> This entire chapter is kind of weird. Clarke is drunk and drunk is weird and everything is weird. 
> 
> Have a wonderful evening.


	10. Sunshine and Bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the morning after.

**_green eyes_ **

**_blue bedroom_ **

**_bright machinegun sun_ **

* * *

 

The bed is harder than Clarke remembers, when she opens her eyes the walls are bluer too. The sun is already searing her retinas and her bones ache and groan.

She thinks of nothing, then thinks _sleep_.

She returns to darkness.

* * *

 

Her bed is moving now and her head throbs. Her eyes are bleary and her shoulders are weary and hey hey  HEY BED WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING she curls her arms around it and grumbles nonsensical things until it returns to her. Good.

“Sleep. More. Now.”

* * *

 

“Clarke.”

_No no no go away I’m not ready to face the daylight yet._ Clarke digs her face into his neck, trying to hide.

_HIS NECK._ Clarke is awake now. Shoots straight up in the air and now feels like she has to vomit but for two different reasons.

“Bellamy!  SHIT. Bellamy. Hi. Shit.” Clarke is running her hands over her face and into her hair and she hasn’t felt panic like this in a long time.

A hand creeps onto her shoulder, a head rests on top of it. Whispers of breathe blow on the little hairs of her neck. His body is curling around her and Clarke wants to lean. Lean into the warmth that is coming off him in waves but no-nonono Lexa has barely been gone a day. _But things haven’t been good for weeks and Bellamy is here, here and so warm._

__

Clarke gives in. Tilts her head a bit as an invitation. Bellamy’s breathe gets closer and hotter on her sensitive skin there, but then “Clarke, you’re hurting.”

“Aren’t I always, though?” Clarke won’t look at him, can’t can’t won’t. Her head is still throbbing and she still feels sick and light hurts but not as much as looking at him might so _look away, face forward. Don’t look towards that machine gun light. You’ll walk away with bullet holes and you’ve just pieced yourself back together._

“Not like this.” He pulls away, the bed dips as he lies back down. “Different type of pain.”

Anger, anger bubbles and boils but _don’t look. Don’t look at his stupid chocolate eyes and open face dotted with stars because you’ll melt._

__

Clarke rolls out of bed, heads towards the bathroom, pees and brushes her teeth. Washes her face. Looks in the mirror like she’s heading to war, then walks back in to fight this battle.

“I’m not sure about the details of last night. I’m not sure I need them. I know that I was drunk and I painted. That I cried, but I’m not sure you were here for that. I’m sure that you came over, don’t sure when. I know that I said some things that shouldn’t have been said, and then some things just to get you to kiss me. That I was hoping that you would fuck me and all the pain and stupidness away and instead you ended up tucking me in for bed.

I know that I’m less than ready for what you want. And that what you want is me, open and honest and everything because when Bellamy Blake does something he goes all in.

And I know that you love me. But I need to ask you to wait.”

Clarke leaves him then, sitting up on his elbows in her bed looking so fucking sad and resigned, waiting for the other shoe to drop, kick him harder, but Clarke needs to let him breathe and she needs some food in her stomach and caffeine in her blood.

She heads into the kitchen to make some eggs, brew some coffee, and wait.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Poem an excerpt from Love is a Dog From Hell
> 
> This is a short one. Super short, actually. It acts as a kind of part one for the next chapter, which will be from Bellamy's point of view. This one is kind of jumpy, but it's intentional, I promise. Clarke is stuck in her own head, remembering and forgetting moments and honestly hungover as shit. Nothing can make much sense.
> 
> Anyway, 
> 
> How have you all been?


	11. call it love, this melancholia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy feels hope and then doesn't
> 
> or
> 
> everything returns to the beginning but doesn't. 
> 
> or
> 
> For things to get beautiful, they first must get sad again.

Bellamy is lying in bed, _Clarke’s bed,_ watching light drip in through the dust covered windows and onto her golden hair. In sleep, still, her face is wrinkled and scrunched. She knows no peace.

He attempts to remove his body from the bed, but when he slowly rises Clarke reaches out with a vice grip and mumbles until he comes back to her. Her face smoothes a little and she returns to sleep once again.

* * *

 

He has been awake for hours, held down by a woman in a bed not his own, and Bellamy can’t remember a time where he was this calm, this peaceful. Like the universe had finally set itself right from its tilted axis and maybe things will be good. Things are going to be okay.

He is hit with the image of her, suddenly. Clarke basking in her drunken misery. She been fighting a long battle, war after war inside her mind, playing for keeps and territory over which part of her could feel joy. When she could feel hope and freedom. This last night, towards the end of it, she seemed free from all of it, everything that had ever tied her down and she had become positively buoyant on air.

Bellamy had to dig himself out of his hole slowly, had risen from the ground on the shoulders of friends and time. Still, sometimes, it hits him. Bellamy is still trying to extract himself from the snares of some dark clouds that remain. Is anyone ever truly free of it? In this moment, this exact moment of infinity, he had never thought it more possible. Had never felt quite this free to all possibilities, lying in this woman’s bed, sun dressing her in buttermilk colors of shining gold.

****  
  


All around him the world lay forgotten. Car horns did not sound, a clock’s ticks and tocks were silent, plants stopped breathing and planets stopped spinning. Seas would still and clouds would halt in place. Here, in the arms of woman. _The_ woman. Time itself stood still.

He joined her in oblivion.

 

* * *

 

A buzz from his phone awoke him.

TO: Bellamy

FROM: COMMANDER MILLER

**Don’t worry about the shop. I gotcha bro.**

**;)**

****  
  


Oh the horror.

Then,

TO: Bellamy

FROM: Quoth the Raven

**Tell Clarke Lincoln and I have the shop covered.**

Capable hands for Clarke, at least. Who, the lady herself, was still sleeping. Still clutching him.

Bellamy leaned over her head and breathed into her ear, “Clarke”, and started the beginning of the end.

* * *

 

"I know that I’m less than ready for what you want."

 

What does she know about ready and want and need and his own fucking heart it's not her's to define. Except it  _is_.

 

“I know that you love me.”

Words that stab and cut at him chest, tear away the flesh that covers his muscle and bone.

“I need to ask you to wait.”

Take his beating heart out of his chest and crush it in front of him. Let him surrender his soul so she can wear it as a cape to keep her warm. Use his feelings, his emotions, as machinegun bullets that she can shoot into his chest.

She walks off like she hasn’t killed him.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy isn’t sure how long he sits in that bed that isn’t his.

It’s long after the heat has been leached from the sheets and into the suffocating air, long after the sun has traversed to the high point in the sky, long after Bellamy stopped breathing.

_So this is what it feels like to live without a heartbeat. What people who have died and come back alive must feel like._ Only Bellamy did not feel like he had been resuscitated. Before, it was fine to feel the things he felt for Clarke because at least it was his own to bear. His own boulder to push up the mountain for eternity, but before Clarke knew, it had not felt like a burden. Before, Clarke had not thrown words like weapons and made him feel like an idiot child who could not possibly understand what it meant to have problems. Adult problems.

_Call it love, this melancholia. This new suffering._

Bellamy rose from the bed, the bed that was not his nor would it ever be, and walked out the door and into the kitchen where Clarke sat with her coffee and eggs, doing a crossword like she hadn’t ended him. Maybe she hadn’t, anyway. Bellamy can rise like Lazarus and still gaze upon the living image of this female, Bellamy can move on. Now that he knows what it’s like to have an empty chest and still keep living.

“Raven and Lincoln are looking after your shop for you. A day of freedom, all to yourself."

 

A long pause followed, then, "Any coffee left?” His voice sounded gruff and worn. Like a rock on the shore of an ocean, hit with tempestuous waves. Tired.

 

“Some.” Weak, ragged was the voice of Clarke. The voice that fights back tears.

Weary, a nod was all Bellamy could manage. Such a simple exchange had drained him, before, Clarke had been a source of endless energy. The thing that kept him in perpetual motion ended up being the his undoing; the new creator of sloth. All these past months had been spent  moving towards a goal that he never thought he could reach, and last night, just last night, everything had been offered to him for the taking. Now, after coming up so impossibly close the weight of all his Almosts caught up to him.

This was how it was, now. This pressured civility, all warmth leached away like it had from the sheets after she left him. How long can this fragility last before it implodes on them and all is left in ruin? Bellamy holds his breath, the tense silence between them a house of cards so close to falling.

Even after she wrecked him, Bellamy still craves her presence like oxygen, and this is the last time he might see her for a long while. He still has to ‘wait’ and she still has to ‘love’ and both or neither could happen.

Bellamy finishes his coffee and sticks this memory, the memory of these seconds and minutes and hours of daylight and pain, into the pages of a book. Like you keep leaves and flowers, preserving them and holding them safe and sound in paper coffins. Bellamy condenses these feeling of resentment and longing, pain and love and hope, and slides them away into the far corners of his brain for later.

Bellamy strips his soul bare of her, because when Bellamy Blake does something he goes all in.

 

And right now Clarke needs him to not love her, and to wait.

 

* * *

_the history of melancholia_

_includes all of us._

_me, I writhe in dirty sheets_

_while staring at blue walls_

_and nothing._

_I have gotten so used to melancholia_

_that_

_I greet it like an old_

_friend._

__

-Excerpt from Melancholia by Charles Bukowski

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Angsty Bellamy. Wordy 'I wax poetic now' Bellamy. 
> 
> What can I say the day was rainy and I got a bit carried away with the prose and the heartbreak, but don't worry, don't fret, these lovelies are about to have an intervention from a few wiser fellows.
> 
> Love, as always.


	12. The Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone Else and how they all know nothing about love.
> 
> But Who does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, upbeta'd and unedited. Let me know if you find errors, yeah?
> 
> (Promise that after this story is complete, major reconstruction will be underway.)

_ But you don't know what love is  _

_ I'm telling you what it is  _

_ but you aren't listening  _

_ There isn't one of you in this room  _

_ would recognize love if it stepped up  _

_ and buggered you in the ass  _

 

* * *

 

“The funny thing about empty spaces is that you only know they are Empty if you know what Full is. It’s like trying to describe the color red to the blind.

 

How can you know what Full is if all your life you’ve been Empty?

 

The funny thing about that is I think my whole life I’ve been Empty and I didn’t know because everyone I knew was Empty, too. I’m Empty, my mom was Empty, and probably her mom was, and so on and so on. 

 

So imagine how I felt when I met someone who wasn’t. He held  _ everything  _ inside like it was nothing. Like having all of that space filled inside him was how he was supposed to feel, like that  was how he had always felt. That’s when I realized that my insides were caverns. 

 

I think that’s how love works.”

 

Octavia rolled this around in her head for a moment, then broke out in a hearty chuckle. “Man, Raven, when you’re high you get depressing as fuck.”

 

“Just hear her out for minute guys! I think she’s onto something. Someone get her a pen, this could be the next great book!” Jasper started running around the apartment. 

 

“That’s not how books work, Jasper. Sit down.” 

 

Jasper followed Miller’s instructions, but while holding onto a notebook and pen he somehow managed to scrounge up from nowhere.

 

Jasper took his time to look directly into Monty’s eyes before saying, “Raven I have a pen. Keep going.” 

 

Miller, who always seemed to hang on the perimeter of the room, caught the exchange. But just shrugged and looked like he was considering removing his back from the wall to go sit on the couch. Where Monty was sitting. 

 

Everyone in the apartment was positioned around a very high Raven, who was lying on her back in the middle of the room, as she was both the most entertaining thing around, and they were all too scared to ask her to move.

 

“As I was saying,” Raven took a hardy pause to glare at each individual face before continuing.

 

“I think that’s how love works. I didn’t know that I hadn’t felt love, or known that I lived without it, before I saw it. It was only  _ after  _ I knew what love was that I knew that I didn’t have it. Just like how you only know what Full means after you’ve seen Empty. I think-”

 

“How would you know it was love.”

 

“Lincoln, I thinks it’s like how people always say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, but in reverse.”

 

And then Lincoln looked at Octavia, and Octavia looked at Lincoln, and he thought about what it felt like when he met her, and how, no, he hadn’t known what he was missing. 

 

And maybe that thing that was missing was love. 

 

Maybe they were all missing it, and just didn’t know it yet.

 

* * *

 

_ it's good to be in love  _

_ But you don't know what it's like  _

_ You don't know what it's like to be in love _

 

* * *

 

Funny thing about Miller is that people always assumed he didn’t speak. Not that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Just that he didn’t.

 

But he did.

 

Miller talked and talked and talked if anyone every asked about what he had to say, just not a lot of people asked. 

 

But one day he was walking down the street and a man named Bellamy called out to him, “Hey, you! Help me move this. It will only take a second.”

 

And Miller, who had nothing against helping, or moving, or general gruffness, had gone along with it. 

 

Funny thing about Bellamy is that when he says ‘second’ he means an hour, and when he says ‘this’ he almost always means lots and lots of flowers. 

 

It was always flowers with that guy.

 

So anyway, Miller spent an hour helping this random guy load and unload flowers, and this random guy with a gruff voice and Leader shoulders and a stern face that could freeze rain as it fell said to Miller, “Tell me about yourself.”

 

Except, by ‘yourself’ he meant ‘flowers’ and by ‘tell’ he meant impress. But Miller didn’t know this. So Miller tells this man, this flower obsessed gloom machine, about himself.

 

And it goes something like this. 

 

“There isn’t much to say. I’ve got a Dad, who’s a cop. I’ve got a Mom, who’s dead. And I’ve got a whole lot of no one else. What about you?”

 

“About the same,” Bellamy says around a potted cactus display. “Parents both dead. Got a sister though.”

 

“And a flower shop.”

 

“Yeah, and that.”

 

After that, they both had a little more something, and a little less nothing.

 

* * *

 

Jasper and Monty were both full of funny things. They stumbled through the world together, always arm in arm, as if it was made to be amazing. 

 

And Jasper and Monty were not the kind of people that would let things fail their expectations, so when the world wasn’t enough, they made it so.

 

Monty and Jasper, they were a force of nature. They would make the red sea part if they thought it would be a good joke, or a good high. All they needed was each other and open palms, reaching hands. 

 

Hands. They were never alone as long as they held on to each other and never feared the world enough to bend their fingers into fists. 

 

Jasper and Monty, they weren’t made to fight. They were made to create, made to grow.

 

Jasper, he grew love from his fingertips. He would spread out affection as far as his arms would let him and hope the people he held would spread it farther than he ever could. 

 

Because, for Jasper, love was the one resource the world could never run out of. It was limitless, endlessly renewable. All anyone ever had to do was be willing to share it. 

 

Open up their arms and welcome anyone who needed to take it.

 

But Jasper was also careless and didn’t understand that love isn’t everything. That just because a person has love doesn’t mean that everything is okay; Love doesn't mean that life is good and people are kind and no one will ever be sad ever again. 

 

That’s what Monty was for, he didn’t have love filling up his coat pockets but he had enough. Enough to know what it was like to have it, and enough to know what it was like to not.

 

Love was the thing to come home to, love the thing that was there when all the darkness creeped in too close to the heart.

 

Monty knew enough to be cautious, that just because pockets run deep does not mean that they are endless. Give away enough love and there is nothing left to hold.

 

And it’s funny, the boy with too much love and the boy with just enough, it’s funny how they live. 

 

Jasper loses his heart over and over but it always seems like he has another to replace what he has given away. There is always more love to cover up all the pain.

 

But hurt, bitterness, and pain. That builds up and cracks and wears and corrodes whatever it touches until everything is left exposed, everything becomes a raw nerve. Like a bomb waiting to go off,

 

it’s just a matter of when.

 

That was Jasper. And as much as they were Monty and Jasper, Jasper and Monty, never one without the other taking on the world hand in hand arm in arm palms wide open always reaching, Monty was different.

 

Monty knew what it was like to measure out love in teaspoons, cautious with it because he knew that one day he would just run out love to give.

 

But Monty also knew Miller, and Miller made Monty want to give all of his love away.

 

Miller made Monty think about going All In, betting the House, throwing down the cards and yelling “THIS IS EVERYTHING”, and risking all the love he had carefully saved away.

 

Because Miller was careful, and Miller was worth it.

 

Miller made Monty feel like he didn’t need to save up love at all.

 

And that's what love is, isn't it?

 

* * *

 

_ But you don't know what love is _

 

* * *

 

Funny thing about Lincoln is that his life hasn’t been funny at all. 

 

No, Lincoln has never had time for humor. It’s always been a race to the finish where only the strong and the smart survive. Orphanages are cruel like that. 

 

Sure, the young and cute and undamaged get out easily. Those are the ones who are lucky, the ones who get saved. 

 

Lincoln was none of those, he had been homeless, running around the streets with his mother until the age of eight. That’s when she disappeared and he made his way to the nearest doorstep. 

 

It was a short trip from there. 

 

The funny thing about being eight and alone is that no one wants to hang around. Faces fade in and out and all the other kids make a grand escape into the arms of people who will love them and Lincoln is left alone with only his arms to hold. 

 

Ten years later, school after school and still no adoption, he was freed. Throughout the years he had steadily occupied a boxing gym, taken community art classes, and held a string of jobs from busboy to barista to tattoo parlor to boxing instructor. 

 

Lincoln was fine with being alone, it was all he had even known.

 

Four years freed and he ran into Octavia at one of the kickboxing classes he was teaching. She had walked up to him with a determined face and said, “Teach me how to kick your ass.” 

 

Funny thing about Octavia, she sure made him realize just how alone he was. 

 

But the great thing about Octavia, is that when she was around, he wasn’t. 

 

So, maybe, just maybe.

 

Maybe Lincoln knew more than everyone else.

 

Or at least knew how to hold onto the things that mattered.

 

* * *

 

_ Now that's love for you  _

_ What do any of you know about it _

 

* * *

 

Raven. That’s a girl who knows her shit.

 

Raven is the girl who got burned then got even.

 

Raven. Raven fucking Reyes. 

 

Raven is the girl who climbed and struggled and fought for everything she has, who got into M.I.T. without the help of anyone, who always got the bad end of the deal but still came out on top. 

 

There was absolutely nothing ‘funny’ about Raven Reyes. 

 

She was a boss ass bitch who looked love right in the eyes and told it to fuck off. 

 

And she knew exactly what she was talking about.

 

How else does someone get those scares.

 

* * *

 

_ But you don't know what love is _

 

* * *

 

Absolutely everything about Wick is funny. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

 

One lighthearted sonofabitch. 

 

Wick got through life easily enough, the only thing that got in his way was his special knack for being a moron despite being a genius. 

 

His parents were chill and they were well off, as engineers and college professors tended to be, so Wick had just about everything he wanted. 

 

That new car, a spot at M.I.T., internships and grants and prestige. It was all handed to him. 

 

Not that he didn’t deserve the stuff he got, it’s just that the world opened up doors for him that were normally held firmly shut. 

 

But Wick was kind and dorky, had a smile that made people want to get to know him. He was Mr.Congeniality, no one ever had a problem with him, and he didn’t have many problems at all.

 

That is, until he saw a latina with anger issues trying to carry too many boxes at once. 

 

That is, until he made the mistake of trying to help said latina and she started screaming at him. 

 

That is, until he said “Hey, don’t I know you? From M.I.T.? Yes! That’s where. You’re the super mechanic, the one who built a rocket out of a car engine my senior year. Raven Something?” And held out his hand. 

 

And they started talking. 

 

And talking.

 

That is, until a blonde woman started making her way towards them and Raven. Raven Reyes shoved him down the street. But it was fine, he had her number.

 

That is, until after that, when things were good. Great even. When Raven would text and they would drink and have sex, he kept going to work and so did she, they would draw up plans for crazy inventions that they planned to actually build one day because if anyone could they could.

 

But one night, he gave her specs for a better leg brace, and she hugged him like goodbye. He asked her to stay the night, “Don’t leave. Not yet.” She said sure, “I’ve got no where else to be.”

 

But she was gone in the morning.

 

And that’s not what love is.

 

Love is staying. 

 

Or maybe that’s not it at all.

 

* * *

 

_ What do any of you know about life  _

_ What do any of you know about anything _

 

* * *

 

There is something funny about Lexa. 

 

It’s just not funny at all. 

 

The  _ funny _ thing about Lexa, is that she claims over and over that feelings are the things that break a person. Yet she feels so damn much and claims she isn’t broken.

 

The  _ funny _ thing about Lexa is that she hurts and hurts and hurts and then pulls away like nothing happens, that everything she has done to so many means nothing. Hurts Clarke.

 

Then asks Clarke to follow. Asks Clarke to bleed from open wounds and not bandage them because that means admitting pain. 

 

The  _ funny  _ thing about Lexa is that she knows so much about everything. Knows absolutely everything.

 

But she doesn’t know jack shit about love.

 

* * *

 

_ I see a couple of typers in this room but  _

_ I don't see any poets  _

_ I'm not surprised  _

_ You have to have been in love to write poetry  _

_ and you don't know what it is to be in love  _

_ that's your trouble _

 

* * *

 

There is one person in this room, one person out of seven, who knows what love is. Who has know what love is since the day she was born and her brother looked her in the eye.

 

Everything Octavia knows about love she learned from Bellamy. The boy who had to be a man since he was four and his little sister became a burden. But he never treated her like one, he loved her, unconditionally, and she loved him the same.

 

Just like Octavia loved Monty and Jasper and Raven and Wick.

 

And not at all how she loved Lincoln.

 

But Octavia knows exactly what love is, and so does Bellamy. And so does Clarke. 

 

But Bellamy is scared shitless and still burned, no one has seen him in weeks. He just hides away in his apartment and in that stupid shop he loves too much, and ignores his friends. Even though he loves them, he just can’t deal with love right now. 

 

And Octavia knows this. And she thinks that it’s dumb for a man who is filled with so much love, who knows so much about it and has showed her every single fucking god damned day of her life what it means to love, what it means to give a damn about another human being, to be hiding away from it.

 

Yeah, he’s a coward.

 

And so is Clarke, because she is the one who stabbed him in the chest and acted like nothing happened at all. She is the one who says that she is fine over and over again even though she isn’t. Because Clarke knows what love is too, and Octavia has seen that Clarke is fucking terrified of it.

 

So really, the funny thing about Octavia is that in a room full of people who love each other so much, she is the only one who isn’t scared to admit she gives a crap.

 

She is the only one who knows what love is. It’s devotion, it’s never turning away, it’s  _ being there. _

 

So really, Octavia knows what love is, and so does Bellamy and Clarke and everyone else she knows. 

 

Octavia just isn’t shit at it.

 

* * *

  
  


Excerpts from _You Don't Know What Love Is_ by Raymond Carver 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this was a long time coming. I've had this chapter in my head for a while and I really hope that I did the idea (and the story) justice. 
> 
> The entire time I've been writing this, I've wanted to present that all the other character have things going on too. But up until this chapter their POVs aren't shown, so their narratives weren't being seen. I originally wanted to do entire chapters about each character, but they became weak and watered down, so those were all scrapped.
> 
> Now, they each just get little snippets, I hope that who they are bleeds through enough that they are no longer as undeveloped and gross.
> 
> Clarke and Bellamy will be back, I promise, but they need time apart after what happened in Chapter 11. They both need to lick their wounds, as they say.
> 
>  
> 
> (As a side note, the poem 'You don't know what love is' has a subtitle, An Evening With Charles Bukowski. And since I used Charles Bukowski poems for the main POVs, I thought I was being smart and sneaky. Smeaky. Yes. Gosh I'm too entertained by that.)
> 
> Loves,  
> A


	13. Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that remains are ashes and some broken people.
> 
> Now they just have to deal with the fire.

_ hell is where I _

_ am. _

_ and I am _

_ here. _

 

_ there isn’t any _

_ place _

_ else. _

  
  


* * *

 

 

Mundane tasks are a safe haven. The even strokes of hands and skin and buzzing are a nice place to hide poisonous thoughts in, a comfortable place to store all the things that make brains scream  _ Run. _

 

And Clarke, the person who is best at running, at hiding, and compartmentalizing all of those dangerous things until they are no longer real, no longer a thing that stings, Clarke goes to work.

 

Clarke dissolves. 

 

There isn’t any place for her to run to anymore, so she throws her problems in with the ink she scratches into other people's skin and makes it their burden to wear on their chests. 

 

It’s amazing how therapeutic tattooing is.

 

Each scratch, each dig and scrape from her hand and a little bit of trouble flows out of her and into them. It isn’t Clarke being scared, marked forever until they make a choice or time tries to erase everything. Until the skin rots away and there is nothing but bone.

 

It isn’t Clarke’s skin. 

 

She falls into the constant drone of the motor, methodical and exact. Just like her hand, precise as only surgeon hands, artists hands can be.

 

(The points of the needles and the hiss of pain.)

 

Everything is blood and skin and ink, this is what Clarke knows. This is a refuge from what lurks next door, in the air that is sucked into her lungs and above her where the lights flicker. Work is where Clarke can avoid Raven’s watching eyes and her mother’s daily phone calls that ring and ring and ring and ring with no answer, only seconds and held breathe. 

Droning and a delicate silence behind it that threatens to break.

 

This is all Clarke has. She’s given everything else away.

 

(Forced everything else out.)

 

Late at night work stops and there is nowhere else to run so she goes out and finds a body not her own to hide in, gets someone else’s skin beneath her fingernails and under her tongue.

 

It’s easier to reach out and pull others in than to figure what keeps tugging on the corners of her lips and prods her thoughts to turn inwards.

 

It’s better to find nobodies and pour out all the love that needs to get out and go somewhere than let it wander and find where it needs to be. 

 

Arms that mean shelter and safety never seem to stay too long, and Clarke is left with only her cold skin to hold. 

 

* * *

 

Raven is blocking her apartment door with a Wick in tow. (Raven still won’t admit they’re dating, and Wick is too far gone to let go.)

 

Clarke just wants to get inside, drink too much beer and try to figure out how to paint the twelve foot high ceilings of her apartment.

 

Her plans did not include confrontation, no matter how poorly executed. 

 

“You don’t want to do this.” Clarke hopes that this is enough to dissuade the two of them, Wick is already looking at her like he wants to run. Raven, however, does not.

 

“You don’t know anything about what I want, Griffin.” 

 

Raven widens her legs into what could only be described as a battle stance, Clarke cocks her head to the side as if to say,  _ Oh Really. _

 

Wick looks quickly between the two women before shifting closer to Raven. 

 

“ _ Clarke, _ think about what you’re doing. Think about  _ who _ you’re doing it too.”

 

“Don’t bring him into this.”

 

Already, all the thoughts that Clarke had spent the past weeks tying down with rocks began to return; the errant, flighty things that float in like wisps that she wanted nothing more than to sink because they were dangerous with their flippancy, their familiarity.  

 

She closes her eyes and wishes them all away, exhales deeply trying to expel them all, and then Raven speaks.

 

“I wasn’t. I was referring to your  _ friends. Yourself _ . Your  _ mother _ . I’m talking about how you know longer look me in the eye. All of this has to do with you. I’m at your door. Not his.”

 

“Well, I’m busy. So leave,” Clarke shoves her aside. “Or come in. If we are talking about this it’s going to be while drunk.”

 

* * *

 

They aren’t even ships passing in the night, for to pass at all there is a necessity of proximity. 

 

They know where she goes. She’ll show up and charm some well-meaning friends along with her. And then she will drink and drink and make them sit there and watch, or she’ll find some flesh and disappear. Off to find some semblance of solace or whatever. 

 

But she was  _ always  _ at Friday Dinner. 

 

He hadn’t been seen for months by any of them outside of the hours he spends in his shop, the final second clicks by and  _ poof  _ was gone.

 

Which is why it was such a shock when he showed up to Friday Dinner with an easy smile and a bloody fist. 

 

It’s no surprise, really, that everyone was holding their breath. Bellamy only smiles easy when there is nothing left to pull it down. 

 

Bellamy never smiles. 

 

Octavia knows how to deal with the fist, fists are easy. Bodies are easy. Take some needles, some string, pull the skin back together. Brains don’t work like that. (And neither do souls.)

 

Of course, the small rustling from the kitchen reminds all the poor occupants of the room what is going to come. What is about to break loose.

 

Spoiler: It’s hell. 

 

But not the kind you think.

 

Clarke wanders out holding a bottle opener, proclaiming a cheerful, “Got it! Let the liquor resume,” before she has a chance to look and see what she is about to step into.

 

Bellamy’s stupid smile doesn’t flicker, “Don’t mind if I do.”

 

The entire room’s eyes slide back to Clarke.

 

“I would hope not.” The same terrifying smile spread over her lips.

 

Conversation starts up again, and everyone pretends that nothing is wrong. It isn’t until later, after Bellamy leaves, that Clarke overhears Octavia whispering in the hall.

 

“Did you see their eyes, Lincoln.

 

It was like no one was home.”

 

* * *

 

“Maybe just a ladder?”

 

“You’d wreck your neck. Gotta be a scaffolding _. _ That’s how Leonardo painted the Sistine Chapel. Good enough for the likes of you.”

 

Raven is lying on the couch, leg brace abandoned on the floor, Wick tucked underneath her legs as he massages her knee.

 

Clarke is spread out over the floor with a large white sheet, tape, and acrylic paint.

 

“It’s just a tiny project. Honestly, I haven’t decided if I just want to hang up those light things. You know, the LEDs? Could do a whole sky thing with those... Don’t worry about a scaffolding. The plan isn’t finished yet.” Clarke pulls out large pallet, a dozen brushes, and starts rearranging bottles of paint around the sheet. After that’s done, she tapes down the corners and covers a tiny part of the center as well. 

 

“Now that you’re all settled, what did you want to do about Bellamy?”

 

Clarke doesn’t even look up, “There is nothing to do. Everything is fine.” She takes a paint brush and starts pouring green paint over the white sheet, mixing in an occasional splash of brown, black. 

 

“Now that’s some bullshit. You did something to that poor boy, and now you have to fix it.”

 

Clarke picks up the tube of red, some yellow and white. But doesn’t say a word.

 

“Clarke, you can’t keep pretending that everything is fine! Everyone is on edge, waiting for the bomb to go off. Something has gone seriously wrong between you, and it’s not because of Lexa and all that shit. You dragged him into your drama, and sure he pulled you into his, but don’t forget that he has always been there for you. 

 

It’s about time that you be there up for him.”

 

Clarke keeps painting, keeps splashing and pulling paint over the fabric like she hasn’t heard a word. Denial Denial Denial is the name of the game this evening. 

 

They all sit there for twenty minutes or so, listening to the sounds of their own breaths and the scrap of a paintbrush. The painting is slowly turning into an impressionist forest with hands reaching around tree trunks, all outstretched towards this pile of ash in the center. 

 

“He’s in love with me.”

 

“So?”

 

“I can’t be what he needs, I can’t give my heart away, can’t be the person he always comes home to.”

 

“And why the fuck not!” Raven actually attempts to stand up, before Wick manages to pull her back down to him.

 

Clarke is looking right at her now, staring her in the eyes and she says, “For the same reason you wouldn’t admit your dating Wick and wear the new brace he made you, or why won’t get the surgery to stop the pain in your leg. I’m so fucking scared.”

“Bellamy-”

 

“Bellamy understands that, but I lashed out at him when he was just trying to help. I was the one who pushed him away, so he gets to do whatever he needs to do. I’m not going to stop him.”

 

“Raven, you’ve said your piece, come on. Let’s go.” Wick helps Raven attach her brace, pulls her up into her arms as they leave. 

 

They both let themselves out, but Raven says to Wick, just as the door is closing behind them, “Wanna get coffee sometime?”

 

And Wick’s laugh echos in Clarke’s ears long after they are gone. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time coming. I'm sorry it took so long, I haven't had this much trouble writing something in a long time, and I really really hope that it doesn't show too horribly.
> 
> The excerpt of the poem is Bukowski, as always, from Love is a Dog From Hell


	14. large defeats, small victories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no winning, only no losing.

_ “Love breaks my bones and I laugh.”-Charles Bukowski _

* * *

 

Bellamy Blake is a broken man.

 

He has always been one, always will be. But for a period of time, there was a beautiful broken woman who made him believe that one day he could cut his strings and become a real boy. A real man, morals and ideals and all. He thought he could be a man who deserved to be loved, who could love, not out of necessity or because it made each inhale and exhale of his lungs sting a little tiny bit less, but because he wanted to. 

 

Because she wanted to, wanted to love him, wanted  _ him _ . 

 

Bellamy the Broken Man.

 

Bellamy the boy who was a father more than a brother. Bellamy the hero, Bellamy the fighter, Bellamy the person no one deserved but everyone needed.

 

Bellamy who was never quite good enough, strong enough, never  _ enough _ .

 

Bellamy who would take on mountains, take on any enemy who dared to stand before him. Bellamy who could take down anyone or anything that stood before him and was  _ ruthless.  _

 

Bellamy with bruises and bloody fists. 

 

Ruthless. 

 

Bellamy the man who trimmed flowers with gentle fingers. Who braided his little sister’s hair with nimble hands and used to tuck her in every night with a promise that he would always protect her. Bellamy who loved as fiercely as he lived and as quietly as he slept. 

 

Bellamy, ferocious. Bellamy, kind hearted, always with the best intentions. 

 

Bellamy who fought and lived and loved and hated all with the best intentions. 

 

And he just wanted someone to  _ want _ him.

 

Just for once. 

 

Not need, not because it was how it was supposed to work, or because of some ulterior motive or they picked out the bits and pieces that were desirable. 

 

All of him. Every single broken little part. 

 

(She had held him, in his entirety, in the palm of her hand. She had all of him the minute he laid eyes on her. And she, one by one, closed her fingers and crushed him.)

 

He was broken beyond belief, beyond hope, but still dared to dream.

 

Just this once.

 

* * *

 

Someone was asking for roses.

 

(It’s always roses)

 

They’re ‘iconic’ or whatever bullshit people like to believe. Call something classic and all of a sudden roses are the only flower in the world that can be used to symbolize romantic love. 

 

Bellamy thought that it was a load of crap, but they did seem to fit the metaphor for his ideal woman: beauty that drew him in and thorns to tear open skin when he got too close, too careless.  

 

Oh yes, Pain. Pay for desire in blood. That was what romantic love was. 

 

But someone was asking for them which meant that Bellamy was complying, if somewhat begrudgingly, and bundled together a bouquet of twelve roses with baby’s breath sprinkled around. But he slipped some mistletoe in.

 

“Oh, that’s a nice touch,” The customer said when Bellamy told him. 

 

Bellamy replied with a nod, the man paid, left.

 

Bellamy shook his head, turned to no one and said: “It’s like he doesn’t know that mistletoe is poisonous.” 

 

Take that symbolism.

 

* * *

 

He’s not ready for the hurt when it comes. It always manages to seep in when he least expects it; the minute distraction slips, he gets pulled away by the current.

 

Bellamy lets himself drown. For a few minutes, at least. He’ll sit down and stare into the nothing, into empty space and let it fill him up. Let the pain take him, let it drag him down down down because it hurts so goddamn beautifully and it’s  _ his  _ pain. His own, and he’ll be damned if someone tries to take it from him.

 

But after, after a few minutes of sinking his lungs will try to inflate and catch on everything but air. He’ll open his eyes and remember that he’s not supposed to feel that anymore, that pain. It stopped being a flickering candle that he could let grow, wasn’t something small and warm that he can keep bundled close to his chest and cherish anymore.

 

It got loose.

 

Before he could blink it had become too large, a wildfire that burnt down every tree, every bridge it came across.

 

He was a slave to it, the bit that hadn’t been torn out of him. And this thing, this sliver, was dangerous, it was slowly burning him inside out, turning his body into a festering wound. 

 

The only thing he could do was pretend that it wasn’t hurting, wasn’t there at all.

 

__________________________

 

The hallway creaks and groans in the familiar pattern of approaching feet. 

 

He holds his breath, and dares to dream, dares to remember the nights where slow footsteps and soft knocks on his door were normal.

 

“Bellamy?” His lungs relax as he walks up to the door and pulls it open.

 

“Hey, Octavia.” She brushes past him and goes straight to the small kitchen, opens the fridge.

 

“You don’t like beer. Never have it.” She pops open the top of a bottle on the counter and takes a long swig. 

 

“You like it. Was trying to accommodate your tastes.”

 

“Just as a heads up, I don’t like this brand. Too hop-y” She makes a face.

 

“Noted.”

 

“I know someone who likes it, though, their favorite even.”

 

“Don’t.”

 

“I’m sure if you invited her over-”

 

There is a loud bang as a fist hits the counter, “Octavia.”

 

She slowly puts the beer down, rests her hands on his heaving shoulders. “Clarke misses you too, you know.”

 

Bellamy sinks down onto the floor, hands on his head, elbows on his knees. Makes himself as small as possible. “I just can’t, O. Just can’t.”

 

She joins him there. 

 

“I know.”

 

They are quite a long time, both comforting each other with their breath and proximity of their bodies. Comradery. 

 

He inhales deeply in preparation, speaks,“Every time I thought I got close to her, she took another ten steps back. I’m just asking her to meet me halfway. I can’t keep chasing her, I don’t have it in me. 

 

“That’s okay, Bell. We’re all just worried about you.  _ Both  _ of you. Everything has gone off its axis. Spinning widely, no direction.” She makes an accompanying hand gesture, “Remember when we used to be sure-footed? All of us, a team, working together even when we didn’t agree. It just worked and it was good and solid.” 

 

“Where did that go, Bell?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Lincoln asked me to move in with him.”

“O-”

 

“No, don’t ‘O’ me. You have to figure your own shit about before you start trying to get involved with mine.”

 

“And how do you suggest I do that.”

 

“How about staying out of fights, hmmm? Don’t think we haven’t noticed those bloody hands of yours. How about saying hello to your  _ friends,  _ how about coming out to dinner with us-”

 

“I tried that, ugly was an understatement”

 

Octavia eyes him and continues on, “-stopping by Jas and Monty’s apartment. God forbid you talk to Miller or-”

 

His head perks up, “Did he finally get his head out of his ass and ask Monty out?”

 

She laughs, “No! Gosh, they’re such idiots. Raven asked Wick out on a date, though, he sent out a group text, and  _ blogged  _ about it, the nerd.”

 

“Good for him.”

 

“Yeah, good for him. The son of a bitch.”

 

“Give me some of that beer.”

 

She passed the bottle over to him, and he took a small sip before making a face and proclaiming, for the hundredth time, “Man, I hate beer.”

 

“You never learn your lesson.”

 

“Nope, never do.”

 

__________________________

 

He has his fist raised, hovering. 

 

Inching closer and closer to the wood in front of it, being pulled in by its gravity. The individual atoms reaching out, pulling on him, and whispering  _ just a little closer.  _

 

He lets his hand fall to his ribs, burst blood vessels have formed a ring around the blue bird that resides there. In his other hand, he grasps flowers, it’s always flowers.

 

Evening primrose, white violet, iris, and lilies.

 

Wrapped up in brown string, plain, carefully constructed and arranged so every bloom is perfectly displayed, the colors playing off of each other exactly right. 

 

Bellamy places the flowers, carefully, on the ground. 

 

Taps on the door, and walks away.

 

He has already said everything he needed to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there. long time, no see. 
> 
> Ah, this is an old dance by now. 
> 
> we always seem to end up here,
> 
> over and over and over again.
> 
> I apologize and apologize 
> 
> but never ever change,
> 
> its almost normal.
> 
> this reality of mistakes and burdens,
> 
> unkept promises and messes. 
> 
> all I can say, honestly is:
> 
> Same time, then. Another day, another week or month.
> 
> thanks for stopping by.
> 
> thank you for sticking with me.


	15. Spring (flowers are blooming)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.
> 
> Some learning.
> 
> Tears and a smile.

**Oh, Yes**

 

there are worse things than

being alone

but it often takes decades

to realize this

and most often

when you do

it's too late

and there's nothing worse

than

too late.

 

* * *

 

Wants.

 

Clarke has been thinking about wants.

 

( _ Want: to desire or wish for (something), to need (something), to be without (something needed) _ .) 

 

Yeah, Clarke was thinking about those.

 

Been thinking about all the times she has looked something (someone) in the eye and said “I don’t want you”, even when her heart was screaming, even when there is nothing more than she wanted in the world.

 

She’s been thinking about a lot of things.

 

Mostly about mistakes, about damages and insurance payments and how she wishes that there was a way that she could pay away any broken hearts she may have caused. How she could receive compensation for all the times someone has broken her own.

 

And also wants, it’s always wants.

 

* * *

 

She is sitting outside his door like an idiot.

 

Waiting.

 

Waiting like an idiot, an idiot who knows how stupid they’re being. The self awareness only serving to make their idiocy exponentially more idiotic.

 

But she is sitting there anyway.

 

Waiting.

 

Waiting for the ascension of feet up old stairs, the eventual pause, hesitation, that will come when he sees her. 

 

Waiting anyway.

 

* * *

 

There is something on her doormat. 

 

A bundle of something. Something.

 

Something that as she gets closer, the more she begins to dread.  

 

Flowers.

 

(It’s always flowers.) 

 

She is standing in front of them, when someone speaks from behind her. 

 

“What do you think it means?”

 

Clarke releases the breath the she was holding, “Octavia, hi.” She doesn’t look up from the flowers laying before her.

 

“That doesn’t sound like an answer.” It’s rye and perfect, her voice, it sounds like old times. Better times. 

 

The sound of Octavia’s smile is enough to make Clarke sigh, and break her staredown with the flowers. 

 

“I don’t know. There are too many possibilities.” 

 

“Oh? I think the message is pretty clear.” Octavia is practically laughing.

 

Clarke whips her head around, “What?”

 

“Come on, Clarke. It’s obvious.”

 

“No, I’m positive it isn’t.” 

 

“How long have you been standing out here with these things?”

 

Clarke shrugs.

 

“Well, in that case, pick ‘em up and invite me in for a drink. We’ve got some talking to do.”

 

And then they went in and did just that.

 

* * *

 

More waiting and waiting and waiting.

 

It never seems to stop.

 

She should have brought a book, or some headphones, or some paper, a pen. 

 

She should have thought this through. 

 

Should have thought past ‘waiting’. Or at least past ‘knocking’, because if she had, she wouldn’t have sat down on the hallway floor to begin with. 

 

There definitely should have been a plan, but  _ no _ she thinks, because if she had she wouldn’t have left her apartment. She still would have sat and thought and waited only inside her own walls, where she was safe and free from change and danger and risks.

 

It’s better that she is just waiting and waiting and waiting with no plan, because that makes this  _ real.  _ This makes it messy and beautiful and that’s exactly what it needs to be. 

 

So she waits some more.

 

* * *

 

“Evening primrose, white violet, iris, and lilies.” 

 

Clarke is grabbing Octavia’s second beer when she says this, Clarke turns and looks at her. 

 

“What?”

 

Octavia takes the beer from Clarke’s extended hand, tilts the bottle towards the flowers that now reside in a vase that Monty made in his college pottery class, “The kinds of flowers. What else could I possibly be talking about?”

 

“How would you know that?”

 

Octavia raises an eyebrow, enough to know that Clarke has said something incredibly dumb.

 

Clarke waves it off, “Why does it matter?”

 

“Cause my brother is a giant  _ nerd, _ ” Octavia says while pushing herself onto the counter. “And giant nerds like to make grand gestures with significant meanings, and you know Bell.” She does jazz hands, “ _ Flowers. _ ”

 

“He knows the weird language of flowers, doesn’t he.”

 

“You know it, sister.”

 

* * *

 

It’s footsteps that wake her up, but she waits to open her eyes and spoil the illusion until there is a light tap on her shoulder.

 

Clarke looks up into a pair of tired brown eyes.

 

Tries not to smile.

 

( _ Can I tell you a secret? My wings are made of plastic. They are good for floating not flying.) _

 

“Hey.”

 

There is no response, but he turns his key and walks into his apartment and doesn’t close the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

The phone is ringing ringing ringing ringing ringing.

 

The second it stops it starts again. 

 

Over and over and over and over.

 

Clarke knows who it is, what they want.

 

But what about what  _ she  _ wants. 

 

Clarke, she wants to go back to sleep. Clarke wants to disconnect her phone. Clarke wants to be able to forgive, forget, bury the hatchet and all that shit but it’s hard when her heart and head  still hurt.

 

The phone rings again. 

 

Clarke throws a pillow and the handset falls off.

 

Silence at last.

 

But she could still hear the faint whisper of  _ “Clarke?” _

 

* * *

 

She walks into his apartment, slips off her shoes, drinks his beer, flops onto his couch.

 

It’s normal.

 

Comfortable. 

 

( _ This is what it’s like to be home. _ )

 

Then she remembers that she has not been here for months, talked to him for months.

 

She maneuvers into the correct position, and finally looks up to see Bellamy standing by the door, just looking at her. Staring.

 

“Are you going to say something, or do I have to?”

 

His eyebrows draw closer together, his mouth opens and then closes. 

 

“Okay, then. Where do I begin?”

 

* * *

 

“Evening primrose, white violet, iris, and lilies.”

 

Both the women are hunched over Clarke’s laptop, staring intently at the screen.

 

“Do the primrose first! Now the violet, iris, lilies!” Octavia is practically vibrating in her seat. 

 

Clarke just swallows and nods.

 

“I fucking knew it.”

 

_ Yeah.  _ Clarke thinks,  _ so did I. _

 

* * *

 

Clarke pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket, and starts to read from it.

 

“ _ You’re friendship means so much to me. _ ”

 

Bellamy stays where he is. 

 

“ _ Let’s return to happiness.”  _

 

His eyes close.

 

“ _ I can’t live without you. _ ”

 

He brings his hands up to his face.

 

“ _ Let’s take a chance.” _

 

Clarke’s eyes are burning with tears or pain or joy. Burning from not blinking, not looking away as Bellamy slumps up against the wall, hands still covering his eyes. 

 

He still doesn’t speak.

 

“My mother isn’t dead, but she’s the reason my dad is. The best friend I’ve ever had in the whole world lives thirty minutes away and I haven’t seen him in almost a year. I was studying to be a doctor, for all the wrong reasons. I dreamt of being an artist, for all the right ones. 

 

I was born rich.  _ Am _ rich. Every step of the way, my whole life, has been one of privilege and prosperity and yet not once have I ever felt as lucky as I should. I never appreciated what I had because I was always told that there is always  _ more _ that I needed.

 

I would get broken and battered and bruised. I would get torn apart every single day. My dad kept me going. Wells kept me going. Hope. 

 

Hope kept me going.

 

And then he died, my dad. He died because of dreams, because he cared. 

 

I had everything, then I had nothing. It was all gone in a moment, and I’m still not sure which hurts more, the everything or the nothing, but I do know one thing, and that’s that I give my heart away. I reach into my chest and present them with love and devotion and each and every time they  _ leave. _

 

I fall in love and get hurt, over and over again. 

 

So, I love you. And it hurts. It hurts more than everything and nothing and I don’t know what to do. 

 

But I know that after these months of pain and hate that I put you through, put myself through, that I’m an idiot. That I’m an idiot who asked you to give your love away because I couldn’t handle the idea of losing you like I have lost every other person who has ever trusted me with their heart. That I have ever trusted with mine.

 

But I love you. I love you.

 

And I hope, I hope, I hope. 

 

I hope that I’m not too late.

 

Because nothing hurts like too late.”

 

Bellamy looks at her, and for the first time in a long time his smile reaches his eyes.

 

* * *

 

A flower has pushed itself up through the underbrush: roots have taken hold, and a little green stem and bud have emerged from the dead leaves and mud.

 

It almost feels like spring.

 

It almost feels like hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Hides behind hands* 
> 
> I hope this made you feel something. If it was bad, holler at me. Comments are a great place to vent your frustrations, and if it is good, holler at me louder. Basically just talk to me I'm lonley and comments of any kind are dandy.
> 
> I think this was faster than usual???
> 
> Adieu


	16. Smiles like sharks and 1,000 watt bulbs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New romance.
> 
> Or, 
> 
> The world is bright and wonderful.

_ Let me tell you a story. _

There is a girl turned woman who is crying crying crying tears of something that she hasn’t felt in so long.

There is a boy turned man who is smiling smiling smiling wider than he has since he could remember.

And they are so near each other, so close in their hearts, so close in the air and space that surrounds them. 

Him-sitting on the floor and looking up at an Angel. 

Her-sitting on the couch and looking at the space just above him. Just below or around him. Not quite seeing him.

And the man, the man speaks. The man starts telling a story they both know.

“Once upon a time there was a man made entirely out of darkness and despair. He ruled his kingdom with dignity and honor but without a shred of hope. Without a shred of light.

And once upon a time this man saw a woman made of sunshine dancing in a field. Flowers grew in her every step, and he envied her. So he dragged her down to hell.”

She knows this story too. Knows what parts she is supposed to fill.

“But she was already in hell. Once upon a time her mother tied her lover to a rock and in a time before that tried to tie up her freedom. 

So the woman knew about the man, knew all about his darkness and despair and instead of running, instead of looking at him as a cage she saw him as a chance at freedom.”

“And they were happy.”

“They were so happy.”

“He held on too tight, though. So tight the flowers died.”

“So tight and yet not tight enough. The fact that she could still breath terrified her.”

“He asked for too much.”

“She wanted so much.”

“But the man, he knew that she needed to run away, knew it with all his heart, but when she did. When she finally ran it was too much for him and all the things he had learned to grow began to die.”

“And the woman, she knew that she needed him, knew it with all her heart, but it was too much. So she needed to run run run far away from all of the things he made her grow that had nothing to do with petals.”

“And he grieved.”

“And she grieved.”

“But one day she returned and the sun began to reach even the darkest parts of hell. And everything was light. Everything was good.”

Clarke finally meets his eyes when he says this, and he feels his heart growing. Feels his heart rise up into his throat. 

His heart becomes a rubber band that is being pulled in all directions. 

(and does what all rubber bands do)

They stretch stretch stretch until they have been stretched too damn far and then they snap.

But his hasn’t snapped just yet.

No, not yet.

Bellamy, he looks at her. Hasn’t stopped looking at her and hasn’t stopped smiling. 

“I don’t remember that part of the story.” She speaks in the softest of voices, in a sandpaper whisper.

And he just smiles and smiles and smiles, and says “That’s because it’s a story, Clarke. They have a way of changing their minds when you aren’t looking.”

She laughs a glorious laugh.

He joins her. 

“You should go on a date with me.”

“Should I?”

“Oh come on, Clarke. Don’t you want to know how the story ends?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Yeah, well maybe I do, too.”

* * *

Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy Blake is something, something else entirely from what he was before.

Just before he fell asleep, fell asleep for those months when she was gone. 

And just last night he woke up.

Because,

Here she was. 

Present past future tense. 

She was here.

Giving him everything and nothing. Taking everything and nothing. Leaving him bare and filling him up. 

Being Clarke, and not.

Old her was gone, and in her place was a new, slightly damaged version. This was Clarke with his eyes wide open, this was Clarke with wet eyes and electric smiles and racing hearts.

This Clarke was all of her.

And he was smiling, still smiling.

Smiling like a revelation, like a shark with teeth just keep going going going and never stopping. Smiling like a 1,000 watt bulb and like the moon looking at the sun.

Smiling because Clarke Griffin had said ‘I love you.’

And there was nothing else like it.

It was something else entirely.

* * *

Miller looked nervous, and it was not without reason. He had run out of excuses.

“Bellamy why why why why why would you do this to me!”

Bellamy continued to just stare out with his 1,000 watt smile, “And here I was, Miller, thinking that this had nothing to do with you.”

Miller rose up from his horizontal position on the couch to wag his finger menacingly and, in an old lady voice, crow “Oh fuck you boy!”

They both dissolved into laughter, laughed so hard the plants started to shake along with them. 

When they finally stopped to breathe, Bellamy whipped his watering eyes and looked at his friend. “Miller, what’s got you tied up in knots.”

“You finally got your shit together with Clarke!”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows.

“...And this means that I have nothing stopping me from asking Monty out.”

“It was somehow stopping you before?”

Miller adjusts his beanie, “YES! Because now  _ I’m  _ the most pitiful one in the friend group. This needs to be rectified. Immediately. 

“Wow. Thanks Miller.”

The man in question lays back down onto the coach, pulls his beanie down over his eyes, and sighs a “Don’t mention it dude.” Before drifting off to sleep. 

* * *

The worn wood of her door is taunting him. Mocking him.

Sure, he has five minutes to work up the courage.

But he had fifteen before and it still evades him.

His right fist is raised, a hovering a few inches away from where it needs to be. (The  _ door _ )

His left fist is clenched, gripping the bouquet a bit too tight. (Daisies. Just daisies.)

His face is in a heavy set frown. Now determined in his quest, he starts to move his hand forward. Only to hear a  _ giggle. _

His eyes dart to the peep hole.

_ Oh how dare she. _

“ _ CLARKE OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW.” _

She at least attempts to look sheepish. It doesn’t work, mostly because she is doubled over, red faced, heaving for air.

Soon enough he is joining her.

“FIFTEEN MINUTES” She cries out among the thunder.

“FIFTEEN MINUTES” He yells after her.

And they both look into each other’s eyes, filled with joyful tears, and smile. This time softer. This time with more heart and less gut. This time with everything that hangs between them, the string that tie them together.

He extends his hand out towards her, and she grasps it like she never intends to let go.

“Ready?”

They both smile like he didn’t even need to ask.

* * *

The date doesn’t go as expected. (It goes even better.)

They both go back to his apartment with soaking clothes that soon make their way to his floor.

The water from their skin evaporates into the already humid air and the temperature rises, as hands meander their way across chests and around cheeks, down legs and up backs. 

The plants sigh along with lungs and soft whispers, loud laughter, cherished groans. 

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Everything is great.

* * *

 

when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

 

I know what he

meant

I know what he

wanted:

 

to be completely alive every moment

in spite of the inevitable.

 

we can't cheat death but we can make it

work so hard

that when it does take

us

 

it will have known a victory just as

perfect as

ours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it everything you wanted?
> 
> (Don't worry. I'm still holding out on you.)


	17. chapped lips, rough hands, paper hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all very lovey-dovey. 
> 
> (But it is love, so you can hardly blame them.)

**_For the Foxes_ **

don't feel sorry for me.

I am a competent,

satisfied human being.

 

* * *

 

It all feels…

 

Everything feels…

 

There is an easy-ness.

 

A normal. Normal kind of Normal.

 

The feeling of ‘this has happened before’.

 

Maybe because it  _ had _ .

 

Maybe this has happened before.

 

Before, she has awoken to the buttermilk sun, the rough-soft feel of skin, the caress of sheets wrapped around ankles. She has been here before, in another place, in another time. It’s different, entirely different. But these arms are familiar. This heartbeat is familiar. These lungs, this skin, this feeling, these are all the same.

 

And it’s normal, and it’s enough.

 

Enough to send her back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

They’ve moved. 

 

In their haze of almost awake, they managed to curl in closer together. Her hands wandered away from the cotton sheets and onto his waist, his shoulders; her feet have snuck under his legs for warmth, following him around the bed like heat seeking missiles. 

 

She is not the only one who has wandered; his arm has moved, much like a vine, around her back. His hand nearly reaching around her shoulder, curling from her waist. The other hand makes its way down her arm-reaching for its companion. When it nears its destination, a smile blooms on his half-awake face. On her half-awake face.

 

They are both smiling, both not opening their eyes.

 

Just basking in the light of themselves and the forgotten sun. 

 

* * *

 

The night had begun like all the best ones do.

 

(With laughter and interlocked fingers and just a little bit of disaster.)

 

They had both made reservations to two different restaurants, because they are two people who take initiative but lack communication skills. The only way the two of them work is together, and they’ve spent so long apart that it makes sense that it would take them a while to fall back into step.

 

This of course meant that Clarke had looked at him in confusion when he started walking off in the  _ wrong  _ direction, and Bellamy had done the same. 

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“I could ask you the same.”

 

“The restaurant is  _ that _ way!” They both said emphatically while pointing in opposite directions. 

 

Soon, the mistake had been realized, and they embarked to the dinner that Miller worked at down the street.

 

(They didn’t need a new or special place, everything about them was special enough.)

 

Clarke stretched her feet onto his booth, and he had pulled them into his lap. They both ordered their regulars, a burger and fries for Bellamy, coffee and grilled cheese for Clarke. 

 

Bellamy doesn’t like fries, but always orders them because Clarke likes to stick them in her Grilled Cheese. Clarke knows that Bellamy thinks it’s a waste to order coffee when it’s cheaper to make it at home and she likes to annoy him. It doesn’t hurt that he always steals some.

 

Miller, of course, heard from the waitress that they’re there, and came out from the kitchen to just to _see_ them. Clarke knew it’s, of course, to make fun of them. Bellamy didn’t care.

 

He was too busy smiling and smiling and smiling, and staring at how much Clarke was smiling back at him. 

 

It started to rain just as they were leaving, pouring down so fast they are drenched from head to toe in what felt like seconds. 

 

All Clarke thought about was another rainy night and how that had all gone down the drain. Thought about how it made sense to start again on another night like that. Beginning and endings and all that. But before she could get too caught up in it, Bellamy had started dancing.

 

“Look Clarke! I’m  _ singin’ in the rain _ .” She had told him once, back when they were first getting to know each other, that her dad had idolized Gene Kelly. And that whenever it rained, the both of them, her and her dad, would run out and reenact that scene, Clarke would mostly do the bit where he splashed in the giant puddle at the end, lacking all the grace her father had, but all the same, they were some of her fondest memories.

 

“I’m not hearing any singing” She had called out after him.

 

“That’s because I care about the well being of the general public.”

 

He had swept her up, and they both danced their way back to their apartments. 

 

When they reached they reached the hallway, they both looked up their respective staircases, said their goodbyes. They didn’t want to rush things, weren’t going to rush things. No, this was the time to slow down. Do the normal relationship thing. 

 

So they both had gone up their own stairs, turned their own keys in their own doors, when Bellamy kept going and Clarke had stopped.

 

Stopped, and wondered what the fuck she was doing. 

 

And ran back to him.

 

* * *

 

There is a steady beat of realness. The sharp drip drop of the coffee pot and the slow rustling of the plants breathing in and out and the creak of wood from the ceiling above them and the floor below. Everything is centered, put in balance with the nothing. So unlike how Clarke had relearned the world to be without Bellamy: without the steady beat of real and the balance that followed in its path. 

 

Now she is finally able to let out the breath that had been building up in her chest. Finally able to roll her shoulders in relief, the weight that used to hold them down suddenly departed. 

 

Clarke looks at the man next to her, the one smiling at her over his cereal like it’s a secret and not. Like it’s something he wants to save just for her and wants to tell everyone. Clarke looks at him and realizes that the reason that the world was so heavy without him is not because he shared the weight with her, but because when she was with him she didn’t feel the need to carry it at all.

 

Clarke didn’t need anything to make her feel important, didn’t need anything to give her purpose and fill in all the little gaps inside that thing some people call a soul as long as Bellamy could look her in the eye. Hold her hand. Remind her to breathe. 

 

Remind her that breathing is easy, that “babies are born being able to do it, Clarke,” and chuckle at the look of indignation and happiness that she would inevitably send back at him.

 

The coffee pot beeps, and she immediately rushes over to grab them both some, using the mugs that, at one point, had been labeled as their own. When she passes his to him, she kisses him. Because now that’s something that she can do.

 

His lips are chapped, but so are hers. They fall into each other, for that moment before their lungs inhale and their mouths start to move. Just enjoying being so comfortably close, incredibly near each other. Loving how easy it is to get caught up in each other, in proximity. 

 

The rough calluses of his free hand run around her waist. Her own curls around his neck, her thumb finding a resting place behind his ear. Their teeth are clinking together; they can’t stop smiling. 

 

He pulls away to mumble into her collar bone, “That coffee of yours is precariously close to spilling down my back.”

 

Both of them were still holding onto their mugs. 

 

“What’s life without a little danger, Blake?” She puts down the mug anyway, sad that the moment was over. But okay with it.  _ There is always another one.  _

 

Bellamy laughs his old man laugh, and she squeals as he pulls her into his lap. Her face turns a bright red, embarrassed at the sound and tries to get away, but he manages to predict her attempt to escape. 

 

“So that’s how it is,” he’s nipping along her neck, and it tickles-she’s trying to feel herself, but he’s holding her down-both of his arms are holding her against him and his fingers are digging into all the places that make her squirm. “You sleep with me and all of a sudden we’re on a last name basis, no, no, Griffin. I can see your reasoning.” And he is laughing and she is laughing.

 

Clarke pulls together enough air to respond, “What’s my reasoning?”

 

“Still playing hard to get.” Bellamy’s tone is pretend clinical, like he’s diagnosing a case of  _ love,  _ like he can explain cause and effect like he can the death of the Roman empire or how different pH can turn hydrangeas different colors. 

 

“Aren’t I already gotten? I don’t think having sex with you is a typical maneuver of someone being coy,  _ Blake. _ Try again.”

 

His face turns bright red, and he buries his face into her shoulder, “I know exactly what it is, then.”

 

As she curls herself more comfortably around him, she hums, signaling him to go on.

 

“You’re jealous of my last name, and obviously want it for yourself.” It’s almost entirely muffled by her shirt and skin. Clarke reaches for his face, pulls it closer to her own, looks him dead in the eye and smiles so widely the corners of her eyes scrunch up.

 

“I guess you’re just going to have to marry me then.”

 

“One day. I will.”

 

“On second thought, ‘Bellamy Griffin’ does have a nice ring to it.”

 

“It certainly does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy folks.
> 
> (That was weird, disregard that-please. I'm begging you.)
> 
> That was the mushiest thing I've ever written, I think. Much emotions, such happiness, very smile. 
> 
> I don't know how long they are going to live in the bubble of niceness. (Because I've never had a plan for this story, it's grown all by itself and I have no control over it. Like an unwieldily weed. But...a nice one.) I'm inclined to let them hang out there for a while. If that's what they want to do. Otherwise, THE ANGST RETURNS. Because I'm sure you all know by now that that is the language of my heart. 
> 
> Please, yell at me in the comments. Pain is a necessary thing and I like getting better, so tell me what you hate. BUT ALSO TELL ME WHAT YOU LOVE BECAUSE IM A FRAGILE HUMAN WHO LOVES COMPLIMENTS. *cough* *cough*
> 
> Ta-ta. for now.   
> _____________
> 
> WEIRD SIDE NOTE. 
> 
> This story is over a year old. I posted on it's one year birthday a few months ago and didn't notice and honestly i'm a little caught up in the fact that this has been in my life for *over* a year. And that I still love it. And how much my writing has improve like holy shit. Do you guys even remember the disaster of the beginning chapters? because I'd like to forget. (Seriously don't read them. They hurt. And not in the fun way, in the sad pity-how-bad-it-is kind of way.) 
> 
> But basically this is a thank you. A thank you to those who have stuck with this from whenever the fuck this started, and those who are just reading it now, to everyone and everything that has made me realize that I love writing stories. That this is something I don't ever want to let go of. 
> 
> I love all of you. I'm sorry that I don't post very fast. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, but I'm happy that it did. 
> 
> Thank you. I can't say it enough.


	18. Where Heroes Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blissful ignorance, pain, and the will to continue.

The aura of sunshine daydreams and peanut butter slowness couldn’t last forever.

 

(They had built a card house out of problems they couldn’t fix and they dared to build it too high.)

 

One month of honeymoon glaze, of smiling kisses. 

 

Eventually the eye of the storm passes and everything is back to the way it was: the center of a fucking hurricane.

 

* * *

 

Clarke kept calling him.

 

And he let the phone ring and ring and ring and ring, each shrill cry of it told him “just pick up, and all of this can end.”

 

Bellamy was barely holding onto the inbetween silence; he picked up the phone. “Yeah?” The voice of a normal man crawled out of his throat.

 

“Bellamy.” It’s a sigh and a call and a resignation. “You didn’t tell me.”

 

She’s so sad, so tired. It’s a statement, he notices. There are no cries of why or what, just what it is and isn’t. She knows. 

 

She knows.

 

“There was nothing for me to tell you, Clarke. It’s just how it is.” He’s bleeding bleeding-  _ breaking _ .

 

“Bell-” And it’s the scrape of her voice against his ears and the pleading, the  _ pleading _ .

 

“No, Clarke. I need you to not be here for me, this time. It can’t be fixed, there is nothing to be done. Clarke, god damn. Go talk to your mom, find the governor's son.  _ Fix things _ . Don’t end up broken and alone. Go back.” 

 

Every word he speaks is a string that weaves into the rope that silence wraps around his neck and soon he won’t be able to breathe won’t be able to-

 

“Bellamy, there is nowhere to run back to. You aren’t holding me here, I made these choices long before I knew you.”

 

-inhale and he is losing vision and his heart is beating so hard like a bird in flight like a-

 

“You knew my past before you even knew my name, but that’s my  _ past _ , Bell, and this is who I am now. I won’t go running from who I’ve always wanted to be, everything I’ve ever wanted, to go right back to being stuck being who I was.”

 

-hummingbird is this was it means to fight so hard just to live is this what it means to want something to have something to lose his chest hurts it hurts he  _ hurts _ -

 

“Just, you don’t have to say anything. Just know that I love you, and I wish I could stop this from hurting.”

 

-black dances all around him there is no saving him just leave him to die-

 

“I should have asked, before. I should have known this was coming.

 

Go and be with Octavia. Call me if you want to, I’ll answer. I’ll always answer.”

 

She hung up.

 

He breathes in.

 

* * *

 

The beginning is always easy: there is no commitment, just easy sailing on a current of unbroken promises.

 

The end is always easy: there is nothing left to fix, just letting go and hoping for a brighter future after all the dust settles.

 

It’s the middle, though. The middle that drags on bones and weighs down lofty ideas of forever. Promises become harder and harder to keep and escape is just circling the drain and waiting waiting waiting to drown.

 

The middle is always the hardest. Don’t deny it. The finish line feels so far away and the beginning is no closer. The middle is the strength to continue on, anyone can start anything and quitting is always an option.

But the middle, the  _ journey _ , where true heros are born, where all the hard choices and close calls and late night worries are. 

 

The hardest part of the Middle is surviving it.

 

* * *

 

The clock is the enemy.

 

The tick tick tick that follows each tock, the ink that squeaks across calendar pages to mark off days, the rise and fall of the sun; it is a reminder of how he should be moving on. 

 

How he should be getting better at this game: the back and forth of grief and growth. 

 

Each year the day approaches, and he puts on his armour, picks up his weapons. 

 

(Liquor and words like daggers to take down both sides of the battle.)

 

But this year he thought that maybe time would aid him, maybe this was the day he would grow instead of grieve. 

 

Bellamy was supposed to be stronger now, wasn’t as withered and dead as he once was.

 

(Green Things don’t catch sparks, they smoke and smoke and smoke but never seen to burn the way dead things do.)

 

Hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence. Who pushed Satan into Hell Who took Icarus from the Sky who told Oedipus that he could outrun his Fate.  

 

Who told Bellamy that he could be anything other than the Orphan Boy who raised Orphan Sister.

 

Who told Bellamy that he deserved to be happy, who told him he had the  _ right. _

 

All he had ever done was live in his mother's shadow and be the thing his sister stood on.

 

All he had ever done for himself was burn the world.

 

All he had ever done was  _ destroy destroy destroy.  _

 

There is a reason he makes bouquets from the dead bodies of flowers.

 

(He has never been able to connect with the living.)

 

(Bellamy likes things cut up and carefully stored in paper and twine, stored where no unexpected things can grow.) 

 

Bellamy has a tongue made of shears and thorns. He breathes with lungs of green leaves and the fading sun. His skin is as thin and as strong as the roots that dig deep into the earth.

 

Bellamy is made of hopes and doubts; he is a dreamer inhibited by a deepset realism that can only be born of trauma. 

 

(Set him on fire and he will burn right down to the dirt, but the plants that grow will be fueled by the corpses of those who once died there.)

 

A fight, a battle, a war, a man who is dying and living but never growing never moving on and he finally thought he was on the winning side. 

 

Clarke was supposed to be the calming water that eased the flames, but he never saw the warning smoke. 

 

Never even thought to look up past the trees.

  
  


* * *

 

**Consummation of Grief**

_ I even hear the mountains  _

_ the way they laugh  _

_ up and down their blue sides  _

_ and down in the water  _

_ the fish cry  _

_ and the water  _

_ is their tears.  _

_ I listen to the water  _

_ on nights I drink away  _

_ and the sadness becomes so great  _

_ I hear it in my clock  _

_ it becomes knobs upon my dresser  _

_ it becomes paper on the floor  _

_ it becomes a shoehorn  _

_ a laundry ticket  _

_ it becomes  _

_ cigarette smoke  _

_ climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .  _

_ it matters little  _

_ very little love is not so bad  _

_ or very little life  _

_ what counts  _

_ is waiting on walls  _

_ I was born for this  _

_ I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem, of course, is by Bukowski.
> 
> I know this took two months, and I know that it’s still kind-of-not a thing. But it’s been weighing on me, how to continue, and I needed to get this OUT so that everything can move forward. 
> 
> So, I apologize, like I always seem to, for the tardiness. Who knew writing was hard?
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me.


	19. the act of not leaving.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She waits. She stays.

Love never works out like it does in stories.

 

It is not a cure.

 

It is not a bandage.

 

Depressed people will continue to try and tear their hearts out of their chests. Anxiety will still haunt the corridors and acceptance will never sink farther than skin deep.

 

Love will poor out of you, and out of them. 

 

You have to love yourself, first.

 

You have to fix the hole in the bucket, or the water will just leak out the bottom.

 

_____________

 

_ I am a broken being. _

 

_ I am the hinge on the window that refuses to open, the leak in the pipe that pours and pours no matter how many times you tighten the joints holding it all together, I am destruction in the simplest of ways, at the heart of my core. In the thread of my DNA. _ ..

_____________

  
  


Bellamy used to talk to her, late at night. 

 

He used to pull her onto the floor in his apartment and they would stretch out their arms and hands so their fingers barely touched and he would talk to her. 

 

He would talk to her.

 

Late at night when the plants went to sleep and the stars came out he would tell her about the trojans. 

 

He would go on and on about Hector, who just wanted to live. A hero a hero a hero, he would say.

 

“Everyone thinks it’s a story about Achilles, but it’s not.” 

 

“It’s a story about Hector, who just wanted to live. Just wanted his family to live.”

 

And he would go on, and tell her how Achilles was golden. He was  _ special.  _ Achilles was the son of a god and a mortal, he would forever be above men and below the gods and he felt separate from everyone.

 

“And he walked in Gold armour, this God among men. The world could have bowed to him. Would have done it gladly.”

 

The kind of man who could break the world and be praised for doing it.

 

“The only one who would face him was Hector.”

 

Not a villain, just a different kind of hero. Not the kind that glowed the kind that bled, the kind that had too much to live for and no idea where he was heading.

 

“Want to know how I know it’s about Hector?”

 

And she would say yes.

 

“Achilles gets to keep on breathing, after it ends. Did you know that? Do you know how it ends?”

 

I don’t, she would say.

 

It ends when Hector ends. It ends with,

 

_ “That was the funeral of Hector, breaker of horses.” _

 

That’s all he was Clarke, that’s it.

 

Someone who tamed horses.

 

That’s all.

 

_____________

  
  


Grief. The word he will not say.  _ I’m grieving. _

 

_____________

  
  


She waits and she waits and she waits.

 

Because that’s all she can do. 

 

Wait and hope and wait some more.

 

_____________

  
  


There was a moment. 

 

Maybe it was just the eye of the storm or maybe it was something else entirely but-

 

_ There was a moment. _

 

A week a day a month a minute where she genuinely believed that they would be okay.

 

They had each other, right?

 

Wasn’t that supposed to be enough?

 

Wasn’t it?

 

It wasn’t.

 

_____________

  
  


She has waited too long. Too long.

 

She has been waiting forever.

 

Clarke sits and waits for her phone to ring, for a knock at the door, for a letter a flower a grand  _ sign _ to tell her that  _ hey, it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to come back over, if you want.  _

 

But it isn’t, he isn’t. Okay.

 

And she can’t make him.

 

That is for him and time to decide.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fucking goddamnit. okay. here it is. fucking 6ish months later and this is all I have. 
> 
>  
> 
> Feel free to rip me to shreds.


	20. The canary sings (We are still breathing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's no one's fault, how we hurt (except when it is)

now when my soul has to puke

it will puke of its own

volition

and not from a

knock upon the

door.

 

excerpt from _The_ _ 8 Count  _ By Bukowski

 

* * *

 

Bellamy knows he fucked up, okay? He knows what feels like a daydream can sometimes be reality and that reality can be a daydream. He knows. He knows.

 

He knows that his life is a nightmare and that sometimes things dissolve into a multicolored soup of paranoia and sadness. That sometimes things turn far off course and sometimes there is no one to blame-not always but sometimes. Sometimes.

 

Sometimes you have to tear off all your old skin, bleed out over everything, burn all your clothes. Sometimes you have to become something else in order to be who you need to be.

 

* * *

 

He walks over with a lucky penny in the toe of each of his shoes, he walks with a hunch in his shoulders and knit hat pulled down over his ears, he walks with a purpose. Spurred once again with words that ring over and over again in his head and they say,

 

_ You fuck up everything Bell, everything you think will make you happy, you take it in your hands and crush it so you have something to blame when things don’t work out. _

 

_ But this time you found someone who refuses to break, who refuses to leave, and what do you do? You retreat into grief, because it’s always there isn’t it. It’s always hovering in the edges of your vision and in the tilt of your head. _

 

_ They say here is the thing you need to do. You need to pull yourself up, and that’s not always easy, or possible, but you need to pull yourself up. And you need to find her, because how you feel right now isn’t her fault, even if it feels like it is.  _

 

They say, “Be better. Not for her but for yourself.”

 

* * *

 

Voices drift out like smoke from under the door.

 

“Clarke, nothing that happened was your fault. Okay? Know that. Know that sometimes there are things that happen out of your control. That sometimes things happen because they do and that’s all you are ever going to get.”

 

There’s something else, something hovering in the background that wanders it’s way over to his ears and that’s when it hits him.

 

Clarke is crying. Clarke is crying.

 

* * *

 

A long time ago Octavia gave him some advice. 

 

“Bellamy there is only so much a person can take. There is only so far a person can stretch. There is only so much a person can be. And there will be someone out there, besides me  _ of course _ , who will love you for being everything you try to be and everything you are. But also accept that you have limits. Just like everyone else. You can’t always be a hero.”

 

Octavia gave him advice that hit him so hard he almost fell to his knees to ask for forgiveness. Almost screamed  _ I’m Sorry _ because he was. He was sorry that his fourteen year old sister had to stand before him and say that she knows he can’t and won’t be superman. That he can never be  _ that _ for her. 

 

He is so sorry, so sorry that not even two years later she learned just how true that was. 

 

Tragedy steals youth. 

 

He thinks about all of his friends and realizes that they are all old.

 

* * *

 

Here is the time to be who he is supposed to be. 

 

Here is his chance to slay the dragon. Be the hero.

 

_ Just open the door just open the door just open the door just open- _

 

He turns the knob and steps inside.

 

The last thing he expects to see is Abby Griffin and Ex-Governor  Thelonious Jaha standing solemnly while watching Clarke Griffin cry.

 

What an unusual sight to see.

 

When they finally realize that he is also in the room he isn’t sure what to say anymore. Isn’t sure if he should act or speak. 

 

Then Abby Griffin does it for him.

 

“Hello. My name is Abby, I’m Clarke’s mother. Wells Jaha is dead.”

 

That explains everything, doesn’t it?

 

* * *

 

Somewhere among the mess of the next few hours, he managed to square his shoulders and say 

 

“I think it is time for you to leave.”

 

He isn’t sure if he is talking to them or to himself, but they are the ones who walk towards the door. 

 

* * *

 

Clarke sits and says nothing for a very long time. Bellamy turns on the radio so they don’t have to deal with silence.

 

* * *

 

“You can tell me about him, if you want.”

 

“Tell me about your Mom instead.”

 

* * *

 

Once upon a time there was a kingdom. 

 

In this kingdom there was a Queen, who tried her best; a Prince, who did his worst; and a princess, who no one knew.

 

The Queen was a romantic, you see. She fell in love and she fell in love and she fell in love. She was so busy falling in love that she had very little time to rule.

 

The Prince, he had something of a knack for it, ruling. But he was also an angry prince, and he punished and punched his way to respect.  _ That’s how you get people to listen. _

 

The Princess was often forgotten. The Queen was ashamed she bore a child from one of those many loves from long ago, so she tried to keep it a secret. But this princess was born to bloom, to reach towards the sun and shine among the stars. 

 

And they were all miserable, in their own special way.

 

They were all suffering.

 

* * *

 

“She loved Magnolias. Her smile could charm any man. Her hair was long and lovely. Her laugh was infectious.”

 

“She would never look Octavia in the eye. She left us hungry. She would blame us for all of our suffering. She was the cause of most of our suffering.”

 

“My Mother was a woman who was trying her best, she was living in a world where men looked at her like she was something to have. My Mother loved us, so much. But she was also very selfish and took more than she gave.”

 

“And I loved her. I loved her. But I hated her.”

 

“I’ve never forgiven her, not for the childhood she took from me, not for the hate she sewed into Octavia’s bones. But I also can’t forget her, no matter how hard I’ve tried.”

 

_ Grief _ . The word he is saying.  _ I’m grieving.  _

 

_ Not for her, but for me.  _

 

* * *

 

“I’m grieving.” She says. “For Wells and all the moments I was too proud to let us have.”

 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is! No idea how this happened but I had some free time and some inspiration in the form of two papers I didn't want to work on.
> 
> Thanks to callmeiwillrunforyou for being a friend.


	21. i am the forest and i am the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> both pain and joy result in tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from a Mitski song I heard either yesterday or months ago. She is so good goddamn.

 

you can't beat death but

you can beat death in life, sometimes.

and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.

your life is your life.

know it while you have it.

you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight

in you.

 

-Bukoski, and excerpt from _The Laughing Heart._

 

* * *

 

This is not her first funeral.

 

_______

  


At night, when she is about to shut her eyes, she turns a light on. Just to sleep with.

 

Dreams, good dreams, sometimes need a little help, some inspiration, to bring them light.

 

_______

  


This is not her last funeral.

 

_______

  


Clarke is not the girl she once was, she is not who she was yesterday. She will be someone else tomorrow.

 

_______

  


(Strike that match and find yourself a patch of skin. Burn what hurts and sooth what ails you. Set yourself alight and pull yourself from the ashes.)

 

With each loss she is born again.

 

_______

  


“Today is not a day to say things you do not mean, Bellamy. Stay if you promise to stay and leave if you want to leave. Do not leave me in between on things, not anymore. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

  


“I’ll tell you I love you anytime you ask, Clarke. Fuck, I’ll tell you even when you don’t.”

 

_______

 

Clarke lays poppies down on Wells’s grave and pretends that this is but a bed for him to rest, forever, in a field of dreams and sunlight.

 

_______

  


“You see, years ago, Wells told me that creation is inherently painful. In order to build you must first destroy and--Wells built monuments. He built monuments to _great men_ and he never stopped building. Never stopped growing. That’s where he was wrong--did you know that? It’s not the one who builds that destroys at all, it’s the rest of us who look up at the monuments of other men and say ‘you said you had the right to dream.’”

 

_______

  


She tries to get him cremated, but Jaha chooses to lay him down in the plot meant for him.

 

(It would make you laugh if it didn’t make you cry. A son stealing his father’s grave)

 

_______

  


She paints, a lot.

 

Everything is red.

 

_______

  


Bellamy crawls his way into her sheets.

 

He doesn’t leave her. Not once.

 

They don’t fuck.

 

(they sleep)

 

_______

  


“Okay motherfucker. Let’s move it.”

 

“What?”

 

“You heard me.”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“We are going to plant some seeds.”

 

_______

 

Clarke spends long days and longer nights blowing smoke up into the sky and stars, remembering nights like this not-long-enough-ago that they don’t hurt. They hurt so goddamned much and that isn’t solved by having someone else to hold.

 

Bellamy crawls up the fire escape and sees her wallowing in her own solitude and decides, once and for all, that Clarke has never been better off alone.

_______

 

“How are you?”

 

“Today I am nothing but painfully alive.”

 

“Tomorrow might be kinder, my darling.”

 

_______

 

Bellamy takes her to a park and along the way points out all the wildflowers that have broken through the pavement.

 

 _Butterfly weed and_ _Chicory and Cornflower and Forget-me-Not and Hollyhock and Rose Mallow_

 

“Impossible,” he tells her. “For these flowers to bloom. But here they are.”

 

She looked at him with her eyes full of love and says yes. They are. How marvelous.

 

How wonderfully impossible.

 

_______

 

Clarke tattoos a burnt out match on her calf, it’s difficult--the twist of her body and the angle of her leg and it’s nearly impossible to keep the lines straight--but she does it.

 

She manages to capture the delicate swirl of smoke that drifts slowly up from the extinguished match head, the fibrous edges of the neatly cut cardboard, even the slight tilt a match gets from being pressed alight.

 

_______

 

Music drifts into the hallway from Bellamy’s apartment, and Clarke leans her ear against the door to listen.

 

Laughter, light and bright and free, mingling with the rolling beats of the drums and guitar and sticky sweet voices.

 

She opens the door and finds her friends alive.

 

Monty and Miller slow dancing in the center of it all, Octavia pulling Bellamy along in hand-held dance of joy, Wick holding Raven up as she is twirling around and around and around and grinning like a wild woman while Wick smiles just as wide and just as tame, Jasper and Maya trying get Lincoln to join them in creating a three person waltz and failing but loving it anyway.

 

_Happy. Carefree. Breathing unrestricted._

 

Clarke throws her head back and laughs.

 

_______

 

Alive, they sing, we are all so terribly alive.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a little experimental this chapter--let me know what you think? 
> 
> for some reason I only write this when I have other writing assignments due, so if you are trying to find out when there is going to be an update check out my syllabi i guess.
> 
> man. just. I'm sorry i'm so erratic and this chapter is so short (if it's even a chapter it's so weird and strange and sparse)
> 
> If you compare how much my writing style has change over the course of this fic you'll be like 'was this even written by the same person' and the answer is no. Not even close. This fic is a little over 2 years old and i have changed and grown and learned and unlearned so many things that I don't think i'm the same person I once was.
> 
> anyway (here's wonderwall)
> 
> p.s. the cast of the 100 are my babies and i haven't watched season 4 yet out of fear I'm so scared.


	22. this is the ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here is the end of the story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An end of an era, thank you.

 

Peel back your skin.

 

What’s there? What’s there?

 

Sure you’ve got your vessels and bones and muscles. You’ve got your joints and organs and blood.

 

Sure.

 

There is a lot of skeletal structure inside you. A whole lot of heart.

 

But what's there?

 

\-----

 

“Clarke do you ever wonder about how we used to be before each other?”

 

“We were more alone, I suppose. A little lost, a little sad.”

 

“Do you ever think about how we are now?”

 

“A little lost, a little sad. But not alone? I guess that’s an improvement.”

 

\-----

 

She moves into his apartment, slowly.

 

He moves into hers just as much.

 

Bits and pieces of each other climb into each other’s lives, swim and drift until he stands in her living room and spies a half a dozen plants dozing among her canvases--looks at her walls to find pictures of the two of them interspersed with paintings of flowers and birds and abstract ideas of hope.

 

“We always did find a way of meeting each other halfway” He says to himself.

 

His fridge is filled with her beer and his counters covered in her colors. She steals his extra set of sheets and leaves clothes in his closet.

 

Bellamy smiles.

 

\-----

 

She’s giving him another tattoo when she tells him they are having dinner with her mom.

 

“What?” He tries to look at her.

 

“Don’t move!”

 

“Clarke when were you planning on telling me?”

 

“Now. I just did.”

 

“You're impossible.”

 

she's laughing

 

\-----

 

“Mom, this is Bellamy. He makes me happy.”

 

“Well, Clarke that’s all I ever needed to know.”

 

\-----

 

He stands in his flower shop. 

 

A woman calls him on the phone, “I need Chrysanthemums for a party.”

 

He thinks back to another time, years ago. 

 

“Whatever the hell you want.”

 

Miller laughs his way out the door.

 

\-----

 

Wick and Raven break up. 

 

And it’s okay.

 

Some things just don’t work out, and it’s no one’s fault.

 

\-----

 

Raven runs her way up the stairs to his apartment, now.

 

The world will never break her.

 

Just make her stronger.

 

\-----

 

Lincoln and Octavia elope.

 

Bellamy is furious, at first, but sees how his sister smiles and how Lincoln’s eyes never seem to leave her and remembers that she has always known more than him anyway.

 

“I’m happy for you.” He says.

 

He is.

 

\-----

 

Clarke hands him an acceptance letter to the local college and says 

 

“Here. Live your dreams.”

 

Bellamy breaks apart. Cries and Cries and tells her

 

Thank you

 

\------

 

Miller is hired to run the store. 

 

Monty starts spending all his time there.

 

They don’t tell a soul but everyone knows. 

 

\-----

 

Every morning, he wakes curled around the woman he loves.

 

Smiles.

 

Laughs.

 

Makes her coffee and drinks his tea, pulls out his notes for that weeks class, she wanders into the kitchen and pours out her cereal, makes his toast.

 

Laughs.

 

Smiles.

 

He hands her the crossword he can’t seem to finish and she hands him her sudoku puzzle.

 

Sunshine.

 

 

\------

 

Her mother asks sometimes, when they are going to get married.

 

They smile their secret smiles, laugh their way out the door.

 

They say, “We are in no hurry.”

 

They have time. The rest of their lives to decide.

 

\------

 

Friday dinner is still sacred, drunk thursdays still practiced. 

 

They are all so alive, so vibrant, so ready to survive.

 

Pain did not weigh down their shoulders, not the way it used to.

 

They all turn their heads up towards the sky, sigh against the night air.

 

And they live.

 

\-------

 

i will remember the kisses 

our lips raw with love 

and how you gave me 

everything you had 

and how I 

offered you what was left of 

me, 

and I will remember your small room 

the feel of you 

the light in the window 

your records 

your books 

our morning coffee 

our noons our nights 

our bodies spilled together 

sleeping 

the tiny flowing currents 

immediate and forever 

your leg my leg 

your arm my arm 

your smile and the warmth 

of you 

who made me laugh 

again. 

 

  * Excerpt of _Raw With Love---_ Bukowski



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks, so much love and time and pain and hope. This has been the longest project I've ever had. The coolest most awesome journey.
> 
> I know that this isn't the best ending, or an ending at all, really. But, for right now, it feels right. And good. 
> 
> Goodbye, thank you. This has been one hell of a ride.


End file.
